Bauer Bread for Breakfast

If you ever have a big, hearty, bicycling houseguest from Amsterdam; and they offer to bike down to Albisriederplatz on Sunday to buy fresh bread, say “yes”!

Bauer Bakery and Cafe is open on Sundays, and famous for their Champagner-Schwedentorte (a fondant-covered Champagne cake). I bought one for a party once and people still talk about it. I’ve also had perfectly cooked eggs for breakfast in the cafe, and the bakery counter is filled with breads, finger food (Mini Laugenbrötli, etc) and pastries.

We discovered Sunday morning that their full-grain breads are delicious too, and we fixed ourselves breakfast sandwiches of ham, avocado, and a fried egg. It’s preferable that the egg yolk is still liquid, and it’s okay if it drips when you’re among friends. You can then happily tear off another piece of bread to sop it up.

A brew pub in Zurich

If you’d like to sample the Swiss version of a brew pub, visit Linde Oberstrass at Universitätstrasse 91, 8006 Zurich. They offer classic Swiss dishes and they handle large groups with panache. They brew their beer in small batches and change them every couple of months, allowing them to offer brews in a style that fits the season.

Happy Twenty-Twelve from Zurich

This is what Zurich looked like a little after 8:00AM this morning: dawn comes pretty late in Winter. It makes it very easy to catch a pretty sunrise.

Instead the snow we expect this time of year, it’s been rainy. How did I never before notice how raindrops decorate twiggy bushes like this? Oh wait, it’s because I lived in Los Angeles, where if it did rain, I wasn’t outside walking around. After celebrating my second New Year’s Eve in Switzerland I’m now a member of the normal human race that does errands and goes for walks even if it’s raining or snowing. I’m becoming hearty.

It’s not all gray skies either, and there are little visual treats to be found everywhere. Here’s one of the ubiquitous construction cranes of Zurich sporting a Christmas tree (you can see it up there, on the left end). I wonder if this is part of the labor negotiations for crane operators. Two coffee breaks per shift: check. Hard hat with company logo: check. Christmas tree: check.

I’ve been carrying my camera around more often lately, because I’m in the mood to capture fun little things I see, and remember interesting little ideas, and then share them all here. It’s all part of wanting to create things and share them without worrying too much about how finished or professional or “good” they are. For the New Year, I find myself agreeing with this from Neil Gaiman:

“I hope that in this year to come, you make mistakes…. Because if you are making mistakes, then you are making new things.”

The original post is here. Happy New Year everyone!

A summertime walk along the Sihl and the Uetliberg

If you’d like to go on a simple walk just outside Zurich, take the 13 tram to the Strassenverkehrsamt stop and head for the Sihl. The Sihl is one of Zurich’s two rivers (the other is the Limmat), and if you were to follow it south out of the city, here is what you would see:

Wide bike/walking paths with trees and grass...

...wildflowers...

...and the occasional marker.

If you choose to return by skirting the east side of the Uetliberg you’ll  hike through forests and fields. There are so many ways to go, but I kept it simple and headed back to where I started.

Fill up your water bottle...

...and be sure to enjoy all the summery shades of green.

Here’s the route I followed:

The View from the Lindenhof in Zürich

Come on up to the Lindenhof

If you are wandering between Bahnhofstrasse and the Limmat, head uphill for a lovely view from the Lindenhof (Google Map).

Snow day in Zürich

A fresh layer of snow makes a pretty street even prettier

Over the past few weeks we’ve had regular snow, sometimes heavy and sometimes light. Sometimes it melted away in a day, sometimes it stuck around until it had melted and re-frozen enough times that it was more lumpy ice than snow. But every time a fresh layer of fluffy snow arrived, it always made the day a little more fun.

I had to go out this morning and since it had been snowing for hours, Zürich was a little thrown off from its regular schedule. The streets were covered in a few centimeters of the prettiest, fluffiest snow. The snow plows were going around regularly, but it took awhile for them to catch up and for the streets to be completely cleared. Since this snow was a little slippery, traffic was lighter than usual and the buses weren’t running their full routes. The bus I was on came to a slidey sort of halt at every stop. A friendly lady sitting next to me said something about us “just going through” rather than stopping. Passing a school I saw all the kids running around and making snowballs during recess, and grownups were either laughing and commenting, or were concentrating on keeping their footing. The snow made everything just different enough that you had to take notice.

Red berries and fluffy snow

cute little icicle

winter branches

My first autumn in Zürich

Hey, it’s my first autumn in Zürich, and the fall colors are so pretty…

Fall colors at my favorite spot, the Uetliberg.

Sunshine-y leaves

Very quiet here under the trees.

Yellow-orange leaves and blue sky.

33 Mockingbird Lane.

A little Swiss ephemera

I’ve always liked print ephemera. They’re fun, plus can provide some design inspiration. Here are a few quaint items.

Neumarkt in February

Neumarkt is one of the streets in the old town of Zurich, and even with gray skies and melting snow it’s still pretty.

Neumarkt in Zurich old town

The Bauernschänke restaurant at Rindermarkt 24 is one of my favorites

Antique sales continue despite a little snow

Need to check out this cute alley..

...yes, it's definitely cute

Zurich transit signage

I love the signage for the Zurich transit system. Designed in the 1970s by Ernst Hiestand, it became the international standard and still looks fresh. Most importantly, it makes an extensive and complex public transport system intuitively easy to figure out.