Zurich - Hot Chocolate and Cool Water

Monday   7/30
The bad news:
Europe has been in the grips of a record-setting heat wave... both in length ( began around 6/25 and is still going as of 8/5), and severity.  Parts of Spain have hit 45°C (113°F).  Here in Switzerland, very few buildings have A/C, since summers are typically mild.  Enter Global Warming... Highs were above 90°F every day since we arrived in Switzerland.  That's the bad news. 

The good news:
Zurich has many public beaches.  Some are free, some have a nominal fee... so most of our days in Zurich were spent swimming in cool water.   Also, there were several Laderach chocolate stores a short walk from our apartment... that's the chocolate part.

This past school year I was the AFS liaison for Alessandra from the Zurich area.  She attended Woodside High in Redwood City,  joined the cheerleaders, and had a fabulous time in the Bay Area.  She arrived back home in late June, and starts school next week... so I invited her to come into town (they live about 20 min away by train) to join us for a beach day at Strandbad Mythenquai on Tuesday.   We spent pretty much the whole day there relaxing, cooling off in the water and talking... then, after all that swimming, we went to old town for a very late lunch / early dinner.

Wed, Aug 1 is Swiss National day and is typically celebrated similarly to July 4 in the US.   We were invited to spend the day with Alessandra's family in Lenzburg.  Lunch was served under a lovely arbor in the back yard covered in grape vines.   Alessandra's extendedfamily was there, including 2 cousins, her aunt, and grandmother. 

Alessandra in the back yard arbor

Alessandra's dad presses the grapes and they make a strong liquor from it, which we, of course, sampled.  Before leaving, Roland, Alessandra's dad gave us some recommendations of what regions in Switzerland to visit... which is largely what we based the rest of our time in Switzerland on.

Aug 1 was also our 25th wedding anniversary.  You could say we did nothing special.. although I would argue that everything we did that day was special.

On Thur we tried Flussbad Au-Höngg, another swimming hole, which is up the  Limmat river, which flows north from Zurichsee.  River.    The park / bathing area is just downstream from a dam.  There's a grassy area with shade trees, changing rooms, showers.  And it's free, and a short trolley ride from downtown.