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| Zurich Tomato Festival |
Zurich is full of festivals; it’s probably one of the things I miss most when I'm in Hurghada. In Zurich, there’s always something new happening, something going on. In Hurghada, it can be a struggle to think of something else to do. It’s partly a function of Zurich being a larger city and partly a function, I guess, of it being located in a richer country. There are, of course, also advantages that Hurghada / Sahl Hasheesh has over Zurich, otherwise I wouldn’t be living there.
Anyway, when Geraldine came over to visit, as well as it being the month of “Zurich Eats!”, it was also the weekend of the “Long Night of the Museums”. This is the one night a year when all the museums stay open until around midnight and you can buy a single ticket for entry to them all.
We’d done this in a previous year, but we messed up a bit when it came to the clock museum because we got lost. Looking back, I can’t understand how this happened, because the museum is in the main shopping street and we’d ended up in some rather dodgy back streets with no form of public transport. And, when we did finally find it, the tickets were sold out (it has limited entry). But I could swear that when we’d found it, it wasn’t on the main street, but I could also swear that the museum hasn’t moved. It doesn’t really add up, but that’s memory for you.
So, this meant that we both had a certain determination to get in this year (and not to get lost!). I was a bit more on the ball (at least I’d learned from past experience!) and discovered that you can reserve places in advance from the museum itself. This was helpful because not only were we guaranteed entry, we also knew exactly where it was before we had to get there.
Although special buses are laid on for the event to take you from museum to museum, in practice it’s not so easy to see that much because it requires a lot of coordination. There’s not one circular line; there are five or six separate bus routes, so you need to know which buses go from where and what times and to which places. Inevitably, I haven’t worked all this out in advance to military precision.
We didn’t do so badly, though. The cactus collection (yes, not really a museum, but the zoo and botanical gardens were also included, for example, so the term “museum” is quite broad) was just up from the Street Food Festival that we went to, so that was our first stop.
For the Long Night, they’d laid on a musical performance as well to reflect how music, like plants, can also adapt. They hadn’t really made any concession for foreign visitors though – not only were all the introductions and explanations only in German, they were actually only in Swiss German. I could get a rough gist of what they were saying, but I was lost for quite a lot of it. Geraldine, who doesn’t even speak German, was probably completely flummoxed.
We also visited the Botanical Gardens – not that you can see a lot at night, but they’d got food stalls there, a special display where you sniff things hidden in barrels and guess what they are (I think I identified only one out of six!), and a display of saffron, which was their theme. They even offered a saffron cocktail for you to sample, but I’m not sure I’d drink it again.
After that, we finally made it – without problem – to the clock museum. It’s inside a very posh shop – I can’t quite remember but it wouldn’t surprise me if the salesmen were wearing white gloves – and, again, the tour did not consider the possible presence of foreign visitors, so the spiel was all rattled off in Swiss German. However, with it being an upper-end shop, the snacks provided were also rather delicious. It was just sandwiches, if I recall correctly, but I also remember that they tasted very good. We even got a glass of Prosecco with the snacks and then a Lindor chocolate ball as a leaving present.
Oh, and the museum was good too (I almost forgot in my excitement over the food and drink)! It took you through the history of clocks from using water and sun to tell the time, and even incense sticks, to modern-day waterproof technology and, of course, fine, high-end timepieces as well.
And that was about all we had time for. I think I’ve been three times now and have never repeated a museum yet!
Anyway, when Geraldine came over to visit, as well as it being the month of “Zurich Eats!”, it was also the weekend of the “Long Night of the Museums”. This is the one night a year when all the museums stay open until around midnight and you can buy a single ticket for entry to them all.
We’d done this in a previous year, but we messed up a bit when it came to the clock museum because we got lost. Looking back, I can’t understand how this happened, because the museum is in the main shopping street and we’d ended up in some rather dodgy back streets with no form of public transport. And, when we did finally find it, the tickets were sold out (it has limited entry). But I could swear that when we’d found it, it wasn’t on the main street, but I could also swear that the museum hasn’t moved. It doesn’t really add up, but that’s memory for you.
So, this meant that we both had a certain determination to get in this year (and not to get lost!). I was a bit more on the ball (at least I’d learned from past experience!) and discovered that you can reserve places in advance from the museum itself. This was helpful because not only were we guaranteed entry, we also knew exactly where it was before we had to get there.
Although special buses are laid on for the event to take you from museum to museum, in practice it’s not so easy to see that much because it requires a lot of coordination. There’s not one circular line; there are five or six separate bus routes, so you need to know which buses go from where and what times and to which places. Inevitably, I haven’t worked all this out in advance to military precision.
We didn’t do so badly, though. The cactus collection (yes, not really a museum, but the zoo and botanical gardens were also included, for example, so the term “museum” is quite broad) was just up from the Street Food Festival that we went to, so that was our first stop.
For the Long Night, they’d laid on a musical performance as well to reflect how music, like plants, can also adapt. They hadn’t really made any concession for foreign visitors though – not only were all the introductions and explanations only in German, they were actually only in Swiss German. I could get a rough gist of what they were saying, but I was lost for quite a lot of it. Geraldine, who doesn’t even speak German, was probably completely flummoxed.
We also visited the Botanical Gardens – not that you can see a lot at night, but they’d got food stalls there, a special display where you sniff things hidden in barrels and guess what they are (I think I identified only one out of six!), and a display of saffron, which was their theme. They even offered a saffron cocktail for you to sample, but I’m not sure I’d drink it again.
After that, we finally made it – without problem – to the clock museum. It’s inside a very posh shop – I can’t quite remember but it wouldn’t surprise me if the salesmen were wearing white gloves – and, again, the tour did not consider the possible presence of foreign visitors, so the spiel was all rattled off in Swiss German. However, with it being an upper-end shop, the snacks provided were also rather delicious. It was just sandwiches, if I recall correctly, but I also remember that they tasted very good. We even got a glass of Prosecco with the snacks and then a Lindor chocolate ball as a leaving present.
Oh, and the museum was good too (I almost forgot in my excitement over the food and drink)! It took you through the history of clocks from using water and sun to tell the time, and even incense sticks, to modern-day waterproof technology and, of course, fine, high-end timepieces as well.
And that was about all we had time for. I think I’ve been three times now and have never repeated a museum yet!
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