June 2nd marked the first departure of the new non stop flight form San Francisco to Zurich, Switzerland from Swiss International Air Lines. Thursday, June 3rd, Ruth and I will be on board for the second flight with the CEO of the airline! We'll post an interview with him about travel forecasts and post continual updates from the cosmopolitan city of Zurich.
While we're there, the internationally famous Zurich Pride Festival will bring thousands of party goers from around the world to eat, drink, and be merry. We'll also be checking out the new Zurich West. It's an ancient industrial section of town that is undergoing a total change. In the months ahead it will be a living, working, trendy part of Zurich. Here's how the Zurich Tourism board describes the up and coming area:
Architecture & culture: Antitheses Create a New Identity
The opening in 2000 of the Schiffbau as the cultural and experimental center of the Schauspielhaus theater marked the start of the real upswing of the quarter. Clubs of all styles, as well as countless bars and restaurants, opened their doors and transformed Zu?rich-West into the Mecca of the cultural and party metropolis Zu?rich, from whose creative laboratories the trends of tomorrow emerge. Whether unconventional or stylish, raucous bars rub shoulders with classy restaurants. The district is characterized by this very complexity and thrives on the antitheses to be found within its boundaries. These exist at three different levels – at ground level, at roof level, and at the level of the bridges and viaducts of the transportation systems that cross over its territory. A particularly impressive sight is that of the oldest secular building in Zu?rich; the Hardturm on the River Limmat rises abruptly from among the drab modern residences stretching out behind it.
Here one talks of open spaces, not of green areas. Take Turbinenplatz for example, a gigantic urban area, a square – not a park –, somber during the day, yet a display of colored lights at night. Modern residential areas fashioned from concrete and glass offer urban dwellers lofts as living quarters. There is no real center as such; sub-centers comprising the most diverse of living worlds shape the neighborhood, in which old and new cleverly interact over and over again in the most bizarre manner.
Zu?rich-West will soon be Zu?rich’s largest construction site: By 2012, Zu?rich-West will have a new skyline. On the spot where Maag was there will be the 126 m high Prime Tower with flats, offices, shops and restaurants, overlooking the roofs of Zu?rich. This project will be finished till end of April 2011. And till 2012 the former Toni dairy will be converted into the Zu?rich University of applied science ZFH, a cultural center and rentable flats. By autumn 2010, the Wipkinger viaduct and its slightly lower neighbor, the Letten viaduct, will be transformed into a lively, 1,500 ft (450 m) long market street, set amidst a multicultural neighborhood with delicatessens, tapas bars, antique bookstores, galleries, woodworking ateliers, wrought-iron art studios, tailors’ shops, graphic designers and artists’ studios.
Built by hand by more than 6,000 laborers in 1894, the viaducts were used to transport coal for industrial use in the days when the air was filled with the smell of soap, burning garbage and brewery fumes. Today, trains still use the Wipkinger viaduct, but the Letten viaduct has been transformed into a route for pedestrians and cyclists. In past years, innovative temporary cultural and gastronomic events have drawn people underneath the viaduct’s arches, and plans are now under way to turn this monument to industrial progress into an even more attractive meeting place. Zu?rich’s first permanent market will be set up underneath the 36 arches.
For more information: www.maagarealplus.ch; www.primetower.ch; www.toni-areal.ch; www.imviadukt.ch.
Check out the International Travel Insights Examiner for more travel insights, and watch the video below to learn some packing tips from Ruth. For more travel information from the Switzerland tourism board in the United States, go to www.myswitzerland.com.
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