Joe had been in Zürich for a week of client work so I joined him for a weekend to see the city. The best thing we did was get the 72 hour ZürichCARD which includes unlimited transport on boats, trains, trams and buses as well as free entrance to many museums. It doesn't include entrance to any special exhibits, but it does include permanent collections. If you only have a weekend in Zürich, it makes smart financial sense. Eating and drinking in Zürich is as expensive as they say, we found the prices comparable to London.
Fortunately Joe's meetings ended early on Friday and he caught up with me just after I'd checked into our hotel and had settled at a cafe for lunch. We stayed at the Hotel Rutli which is located about a 10 minute walk from the main train station. Great hotel with nice rooms for a good price which included breakfast. The room decor was really interesting - graffiti. The staff, like all the Swiss I met were extremely 
friendly, helpful and wiling to speak English. The hotel had one big drawback. Because it was in the 80s you needed to keep the windows open and the fan on (no A/C anywhere in the city that we could find); however, we were on a pedestrian street that was amazingly loud until after 3a both nights. I'd stay in the hotel again if it was weather for closed windows.
Our leisurely lunch initiated the theme of plenty of Swiss white wine with our meals. Crisp, dry and refreshing in the warm weather. From there, we went back to the hotel so Joe could get out of his suit. 
It had been a long week for him so we took a 90 minute boat ride that covered the top third of the Zürichsee (Lake Zürich), a great way to relax and recharge.Zürich is a bit like Amsterdam in that much of what there is to do is wander around, enjoy the architecture and the food, shop if you're so inclined and visit museums and churches during the day. Or if you're up for it, party into the night. Joe and I went to bed early so we could hit the museums first thing on Saturday morning.
Chasing Giacometti
Alberto Giacometti was Swiss by birth and we had heard Zürich was a great city to see works we may not have seen before. The first museum we headed toward on our quest was the Museum Rietberg, but this was all wrong on the Giacometti front. In some literature we had there was confusion about the museum's new wing and Giacometti, just one of those things. However, we were really glad we went. The museum is in an old mansion worth seeing for the architecture alone. The museum focuses on art from Asia, Africa and Ancient America. All of the sudden I was reliving my visits to Thailand, Malaysia and Laos, an unexpected pleasure.Halfway back to the center of town we tracked down the James Joyce Pub for lunch. Lovely, but not exactly what I had expected. It turned out to be an upscale bar/restaurant in a hotel, not a hole in the wall where philosophers and writers might hang out. According to some research I did later, the pub tiles, bar and fixtures - which are really impressive - were bought by a Swiss bank and moved to Zürich from Dublin about 40 years ago. Supposedly, according to one article I read, the decor is described in certain passages in Ulysses.
After lunch we took a tram that drove us down Bahnhofstrasse, the Rodeo Drive of
Zürich. Next we stopped at the Fraumünster, a church famous for its Marc Chagall stained glassed windows. They were incredible, but no photos allowed. Right next door is St. Peter's which has the largest clock face in Europe.At our second museum stop, the Kunsthaus Zürich, we did find the city's amazing Giacometti Collection. There was of course, plenty of other art worth seeing. The museum covers the full time range from old masters to 21st century art. One of the things I particularly enjoyed was the way that selected pieces were placed where they surprised you and challenged your perceptions. For example, you might find a 20th century sculpture in a room of 18th century oil paintings of still lifes and portraits. There was a rather unnerving exhibit going on throughout the museum that we never were able to get any information on except for assurances from security guards that it was an exhibit. Randomly placed throughout the museum were backpacks, briefcases, etc., The kind of thing that you tend to be highly attuned to in airports and train stations.
A Hot Dining Experience
Saturday night we had dinner reservations at Hiltl. The restaurant has been serving an all vegetarian menu (no meat or seafood) since 1898. If you are a vegetarian of any kind you must make a stop here. There's a cafe, a bar as well as the more formal restaurant. It's prices are often cited as a bargain in the city.
The restaurant was beautiful, the service amazing and the food was great. It was oppressively hot though, which made it a little tough to bear. We were upstairs in a dining room with windows that barely cracked open (which we were far away from). Outside it was in the low 80s, inside it was in the 90s. No ice in your drinks and all the water you wanted, but in small glasses -- and despite the fancy waiters and service you fetched your own water. We must've made at least six trips. After we finished our ice cold wine, I began dipping the water glasses in the wine bucket, a bit tacky, but so refreshing.
It was really a shame though. I would like to have explored the menu more and perhaps stayed for dessert, but fresh air was needed. It was an easy walk over and then down Banhofstrasse for window shopping toward the cooling breezes of the lake.
Fritz Glarner
On Sunday we went hunting for the Haus Konstruktiv museum. We were expecting the museum to focus on residential building design and construction, but it really was about consumer product design - furniture, household items, etc. Very cool building and some edgy and fun stuff.
However, our primary objective was to see the Rockefeller Dining Room. It had been in Nelson A. Rockefeller's New York City apartment starting in 1963 and then removed and sold in the 1980s. It was amazing, like stepping into a painting. It reminded me very much of the feeling of immersion you have in the Peacock Room at the Freer Gallery of Art in Washington, DC. The big difference being the 20th century contemporary flavor. Glarner knew Piet Mondrian and was clearly influenced by this relationship.
The nice part about Zurich is you can really get a sense of the city and see the highlights in a weekend and still have time for a leisurely meal or two at an outdoor cafe. Keep in mind that the Italian food is excellent - including the street pizza - given Zürich's proximity to the border. While I wouldn't mind going back, I wouldn't necessarily seek Zürich out, though I want to see the rest of Switzerland and it's a good gateway.
