Zurich, Switzerland

In my most recent trip to Europe, I visited Zurich, Switzerland with my cousin, Katie. If I had to sum up Zurich in three words, those words would be beautiful, expensive, and well, expensive. Like, outrageously expensive.

I did go into our trip to Zurich knowing that it would be a bit expensive, but holy cow. It was worse than I anticipated.

I remember the first day Katie and I got there, we settled into our “Ibis Express Budget” hotel (not budget pricing in my opinion), and then set off to explore around the city. Before I get into the story of our adventures, I’d like to share the details of this lovely budget hotel room. As you walked in, the bathroom was to your right, with this little flimsy door that did not actually even touch from the floor to the top of the frame. It instead went from about your mid-shins, to your forehead – like a public bathroom stall door. How lovely.

Then as you continued to walk into the room, the shower was right there, smack in the middle of the room, with a glass door. Upon first glance, both of us died laughing realizing that this truly was a budget hotel and we were in for quite the stay here. And lastly, as you kept moving forward, there were bunk beds. Thankfully for Katie, I never got the top bunk as a kid because I was the youngest and never got the fun bed, so I gladly called top bunk before she could even try to fight me for it.

Anyway, as much as we really wanted to just hang out in this marvelous hotel room we were graced with, we were starving so we decided to find somewhere to grab lunch. We passed a restaurant which looked super cute, with locals sitting outside eating the local food and sipping some beer. We were very inclined to join them until we saw the prices on the menu and decided to find somewhere else to eat.

It wasn’t until we were wandering around for close to 45 minutes until we realized that we were not going to find a less expensive restaurant. So, as my motto goes well I’m abroad “if you can’t beat em, join em!” So, we refinanced our mortgage, took out three more loans, and then sat down to enjoy the most expensive meals of our lives. (No, this is not the pizza from one of my previous blog posts. That was a different, terribly expensive meal).

After lunch we wandered around some more, quickly realizing that these high prices weren’t secluded to the food alone. As if I thought I was going to buy a souvenir there – HA! Think again.

One day while we were there, we did go into a chocolatier shop (I mean, how can you skip out on that in Switzerland?). After buying six mini chocolate covered caramels, and paying outrageous prices for them, I told Katie that I’d stick to the overpriced Lindt chocolate that they sell in the grocery stores there.

Beyond the money spent on this vacation, the views were absolutely spectacular. We went on a tour one day on a bus ride through the city, followed by a ferry ride across the water, which then brought us to this funicular that brings you up the mountain so that you can see over the city. It was absolutely beautiful. Just amazing.

On another day, we did a boat tour that took us to an amazing waterfall called the Rheinfall, which is the largest waterfall in Switzerland.

I would definitely recommend both of these tours to anyone travelling to Zurich. Compared to the rest of the things you can buy in this city, the tickets for these tours were reasonably priced.

Overall, I really loved Switzerland. For the next time I go, I will definitely save more money beforehand, and will probably travel to some areas outside of the cities, in hopes that it will be a bit more affordable. However, the views were absolutely stunning and the weather was amazing! (We were there mid-June).