Zurich - Brunch at Uto Kulm

Uetliberg - A Planet on the Planetenweg

There’s no point in having a visitor if you can’t use it as an excuse to go for a brunch. The Uto Kulm hotel is situated right at the top of the Uetliberg – Zurich’s home hill / mountain – so it has great views over the lake and the rest of Zurich (and surrounding areas). I’d never had brunch there before so it was a good opportunity to try it out.

I booked in advance, so got a print-out of the ticket, which included the cost of travel all round Zurich Kanton for the entire day, so it was a good bargain. We arrived pretty much on time, but this is Switzerland so most people were already there. We climbed up the hill from the station wondering how many people were going to be at the brunch, but I think we were actually the stragglers.

It was packed (which I guess is a good sign). I’d asked for a window seat but we didn’t get one, but I didn’t have the energy to argue and I guess everyone asks for that anyway (and not everyone can have that).

It was a good brunch. At first I thought there wasn’t much there, but it later transpired that it came out in “courses”, so you really had to grab what you most wanted whenever it was on offer. It started off with a welcome prosecco and we could have as much coffee as we liked (including speciality coffees such as cappuccino, latte macchiato etc), but it was sometimes a bit hard to grab hold of a waiter.

But the food was good – it started off with a selection of breakfast items including pretty much everything you’d expect. There wasn’t a fresh egg station but they had scrambled and fried eggs for you to serve yourself, bacon, sausage, cereals, roesti, yoghurt, breads, cold meats, cheese, birchermuesli, etc. I was originally disappointed thinking that was it (although quite sufficient), but then they brought out the main courses. I can’t quite remember what they were now, but there were vegetarian options too, I was relieved to see (since Geraldine is a vegetarian). I seem to recall that there was a turkey and pork roast, some wonderful fish in batter, plus the vegetarian choices.

After this, they rolled out the dessert buffet, including chocolate and white chocolate mousse, I believe.

We decided to walk off at least some of our gluttony by going along the Planetenweg – it’s a walk along the top of the Uetliberg and they have models of all the planets, with the distance you walk being to scale with the distance between the planets (and the models of the planets at the side of the path themselves also being to scale). (Incidentally, apologies for the recent out-of-focus photos - I think my camera lens needs a clean! Either that, or I need to buy a new camera)

I was panic-stricken as we started the walk because the people coming up the hill that we were walking down were looking completely exhausted. They were wheezing! They were puffing! They were leaning on the handrail and taking a rest! And these people looked like they were so healthy and fit! So how would I be able to cope? We were going down steps and when we got to the bottom (but we were still on top of the hill, basically), it seemed that there was another path that wound its way up more gently. I think if I were going in the opposite direction, I’d take that route rather than up the stairs. Fortunately, it turned out that the way we went didn’t go up again, so I was spared the torture.

It’s a bit disconcerting as you walk, because once you start, there’s not really any option other than to continue. But you are rewarded with some beautiful views over the lake and Zurich and with the beautiful green trees and grass as you walk along. The paths are good, so you don’t really need any hiking gear as such, and if you start from Uto Kulm, you are spared the hard climb at the end.

We must have walked 6-7km in total and then got the cable car down to Adliswil. From there, to make the most of the free tickets we had, we took a bus to Thalwil and then took the boat back to Zurich, while the weather still held.

Again, I’d highly recommend this as a good Sunday activity for anyone looking for something to do in Zurich!