Zurich • lucerne •lavaux •talloires
Zurich was intended to be a 20 minute pass-through in my journey from Bordeaux to Lucerne. But the day’s sunshine and walkability beckoned me to lock up my bags at the Main Station and venture out for the afternoon.
My first stop was the old town neighborhood of Niederdorf in search of Wirtschaft Neumarkt — a romantic garden restaurant behind the alleyways of Niederdorfstrasse, serving traditional food under a canopy of leaves. This meal kicked off my love affair with Zurich, and set me off to explore some other city gems. Here are the highlights of my afternoon:
— Drinking from one of Zurich’s 1,200 decorative water fountains. Many are over 100 years old and made of stone.
— Climb to top of Grossmünsterplatz Church for a view of the city and the Alps
— Visit the Giacometti murals decorating the entry hall of Zurich’s police station
— Shop at EnSoie’s 3-story flagship boutique for homeware, colorful dresses, and leather bags. I picked up a pair of sunglasses from an EnSoie x VIU collaboration
— Admire Chagall’s stained glass windows at Fraumünster Church
— Indulge in luxemburgerli macaroons from Café Sprüngli
— End the afternoon in Lindenhof park, the highest point in the city, where families are picnicking and playing chess
lucerne
I took the evening 2.5 hour train across the alps from Zurich over to Lucerne, where I was welcomed by my dear friend Claire — a french gal living the dream in the German part of Switzerland. I read somewhere that Lucerne “feels like an elegant middle-aged lady” and I really couldn’t put it any better. There’s the quaint cobble-stoned Altstadt (Old City), leafy green parks like Inselipark, German brew pubs serving bratwurst and pretzels, a 17th century wooden Chapel Bridge, and the lake water shimmers shades of cobalt and green from the minerals in glacial runoffs. Mount Rigi and Mount Pilatus tower over the medieval city. Life revolves around the mountains and the lake.
I wandered about on foot: stopping for a cheese pie at Wirtshaus Taub, hiking up to the protective city calls (Musegg Wall), and picking up a new pair of Swiss-designed / Italian-made sunglasses at VIU. The highlight of my afternoon, and one of my favorite memories of this trip, was spending a few hours at Seebad (a local tip from the team at VIU). Seebad, pictured above, is a 19th century badi (open-air swimming area), where you can dive off the dock with stunning views of Mount Pilatus ahead and the city behind you. There’s a small entry fee, which covers your locker, changing rooms, all-day access to the docks and the bar/restaurant. Instead of staying there all evening (which I definitely could have), Claire and I decided to take the funicular up to Art Deco Hotel Montana for sunset drinks — wrapping up a dreamy short stay in this medieval city.
LA VAUX
En route to Talloires, we drove through the impossibly beautiful area of Lavaux, Switzerland. Twenty miles of vineyards stretch across the shores of Lake Geneva, interrupted only up by a few tiny villages that look straight out of a storybook.
They say that there are three suns in LaVaux: the one in the sky, its reflection on the lake, and the stones that trap its heat and keep the vines warm at night. There are walking and hiking paths winding through the vineyards, so we spent an afternoon criss crossing them until settling into one of the villages for cheese and wine. This place seems to have none of the tourism or pretentiousness of wine regions elsewhere in the world. It’s a gem, and one I can’t wait to return to.
talloires
The tiny alpine village of Talloires, France is one of my favorite places in the whole world. I lived there for a summer back in college, and fell in love with the Haute-Savoie region and with the exceptionally kind family that hosted me. I return as often as I can, and it always feels like coming home.
Days in Talloires with my favorite French family are filled to the brim with adventure. It’s a way of life here, I’ve learned. We start our mornings with a cycle down to Lake Annecy and a morning dip. (To be clear, not the kind that lasts for 30 seconds in the water… The kind where you actively swim for a good 15-20 minutes and really get the blood flowing!) If it’s wintertime, these daily dips are shorter and interspersed with sauna sessions.
My favorite nearby market is in Thônes, a 45 minute drive from Talloires. There are raw milk “vending machine” equivalents and the very best cheese shops to sample and indulge in en route. A bike tour around the lake is one scenic way to earn that fromage :)
Backyard garden lunches feature local cheese (Tomme, Emmental, Tome, Beaufort), fresh hazelnut bread, and sparkling wine. Always just enough to fuel an afternoon of hiking, parapenting, swimming in the lake, and biking.
If we decide to venture out for lunch… Le Chalet de L’Aulp might be the most epic destination. We hiked for about 2 hours up La Tournette from Talloires to reach this chalet in the alps. They serve only the finest Haute-Savoie cuisine: plates of freshly-made tomme cheese and charcuterie from their farm, heaps of tartiflette, fondue, and crispy fried potato cakes, all washed down with Kir, red wine, and blueberry pie.
After we returned from our hike, we hit the lake. Nico and his friends have picked up the sport of “apnea”, or free diving. We spent the later part of the afternoon in the center of the lake diving and zipping around on a wakeboard! (Nothing like learning how to wakeboard in front of a group of French pro-skiers. Embarrassing…)
Evenings in Talloires might entail a stroll down to the lake for an ice cream, or attending a film at the little village cinema. These days here are so full, in every sense of the word: a generous dose of sunshine, warm and joyous people, huffing and puffing through the alps, diving into the cold depths of the lake, and filling up on local, fresh cheese away from all the distractions of life back home is good for the soul and leaves me rejuvenated every time.
A final stop of any trip to Talloires is to Le Prieure, a former Priory that’s part of a Benedictine monastery constructed in the 11th century! It’s now home to Tufts University’s European Center, where I was first introduced to this magical corner of the world.
