Opfikon - Welcoming My Own Visitor

Idyllic House and Garden in Opfikon

I’ve just had Geraldine over to visit for 6 days and one of the things she wanted to do was to see the area in which I am now living. Since I’d just had my welcome tour from the council, I thought I could try to re-do the bit in Opfikon (she’s already seen my work place which isn’t that exciting, to be honest).

All good trips start with coffee and cake, so we went to the local bakery for a snack before we began. The immediate area near me isn’t that interesting – a few supermarkets, a few take-away restaurants (which are few in Switzerland but I’m outside of the wealthy city centre now), a few sit-in restaurants, and not much else.

In the summer, the busy road bridge over the river Glatt is decorated with flowers (I’m sure the flowers would get torn out in the UK!) and on each side of the river, there is a cycle path and a pedestrian path. We walked along the river and then finally turned towards the hill and started our climb up to Opfikon.

It was good to take a visitor because Geraldine was astonished at how you suddenly end up in a rural village in the middle of the countryside when minutes before you had to sit by a busy road to have your cup of coffee. The contrast is quite extreme. The sun was shining, the sky was blue, and it was a hot summer’s day. I’d been driven up by bus before, so it was quite a hill to get there – nothing too strenuous but enough to make you sweat when it’s so hot.

We marveled at a cyclist going up the hill and then felt a bit smug when he got off his bike, but then we were put back in our place when it turned out that he’d got off his bike because he’d arrived home, not because he was too tired. We were just judging him by our own standards!

As you may have seen from the last blog, many of the buildings in Opfikon are old and have traditional beams. On the outskirts there are some more modern buildings, but they mostly look fairly large and wealthy. It is a rural area, so there are also a fair few farms. We stopped by a stable and peered inside to look at the horses.

Geraldine has an allotment in the UK, so she couldn’t believe her eyes at the Swiss version on the edge of Opfikon. Each allotment had a little hut with curtains and a flag, clearly done out for living in to some extent. They are like beach huts in the UK and many Swiss people will go and spend a day in their allotment eating and drinking and passing the time away in the countryside. Each patch of land was exceptionally well tended without a weed in sight. It’s so perfect, it’s really a bit surreal.

We walked past an orchard (or was it cherry trees?) and at the end of each row of trees there were a couple of rose bushes just to make it look more decorative. There was a notice up explaining that the netting above it was to stop hail from damaging the trees and apologizing for its unsightliness. This is Swiss perfection for you.

The roads are quite narrow in Opfikon ; we were there on a Saturday and it seemed that nobody was about. A bus seemed to be following us about, which took up the entire road whenever it passed. It felt like we were walking round an open-air museum.

We got desperately thirsty at one point. We passed a farm shop and even though it looked closed, the notice in German on the door proclaimed that it was open. I tentatively tried the door and it led into a barn with various produce – fruits, honey, jams, eggs, and drinks. Nobody was there. A noticeboard hung on the wall where various people had posted their “I owe you” notices. Otherwise, an honesty box (milk urn) was in the middle for you to pay for your goods. We took a couple of Apfelschorle (apple juice with water), and dropped our payment into the honesty box. I’m not sure there’s anywhere left in the UK that operates such a system these days.

I took Geraldine to the viewing area on top of the hill and we noticed a huge slide (like a flume) going from the top to half-way down the hill and into a children’s playground below. I was half-tempted to go on it, but actually it looked too scary. The children no doubt love it.

Somehow, walking round this little village took us almost the entire day, although possibly we didn’t start until noon anyway, since neither of us were in the mood to rush about. We walked back down to the busy road below and it felt like we’d been away somewhere completely different.