I did my short round cruise on Zürichsee* today. It was nice enough .. no fairy-tale castles to behold from the lake, just the Lindt & Sprüngli Chocolate Factory. The other highlight of my day (believe it or not, and don’t laugh) was my visit to the Zürich main post office. I had to stop myself from buying one each of all the beautiful stamps they had for sale.
*German for Lake Zürich – and meer is actually sea! Here is a little table.
German
English
Zürichsee
Lake Zurich
Rotes Meer
Red Sea
Atlantischer Ozean
Atlantic Ocean
Golf von Mexiko
Gulf of Mexico
Here’s our 300-person passenger ferry Uetliberg, named for a mountain near Zürich. The vessel is 42m (138 ft) long and 7 m (23 ft) wide and has been in service since 1999.The inset shows our 1h 40 min circular trip at the top of the Lake. Some really nice houses are visible from the water. It was a beautiful day, but it’s still very early in the season so only a few paddleboarders, kayakers and sailboats were around.I hopped off at the last stop in the boat cruise, at Willishofen, where I found this giant Lindt Milk Chocolate Gold Bunny at a gas station with a superette. Stores have tiny, regular and giant 1 kg Lindt chocolate bunnies for sale (the 1 kg ones go for SFr. 50 / US$50).Here’s the Zurich Main Post Office building on Kasernenstrasse 97 .... with fine old mosaic tiles on the bottom entrances still intact. But take a look at the blue and red letters visible in the lobby inside. Google has set up shop in the building as well.Here’s my little set of Swiss stamps I bought – just for fun. The bicycle stamps celebrate the 200 year anniversary of the invention of the bicycle (in 1817 by the German Baron Karl von Drais). The flower and butterfly stamps feature a fine laser-cut perforation so that the exact shapes can stay intact. In the middle is a set of three stamps that gives a nod to the Gotthard Base Tunnel for which construction was completed in 2016.This is just a cute jewelry store window display, for jewelry for kids (note that mom or dad would have to be prepared to splurge several hundred SFr.). The display has it all though : castle, princess in distress, knight in shiny armor and the dragon (the dragon looks a little sad – aw).
