Maps Restaurants Cafés Nightlife Sightseeing Shopping Events Hotels Zurich February - March 2014 Suits, scarfs, souvenirs The city’s best shopping on 10 pages Raucous revelling All about fasnacht, the Swiss carnival custom FREE COPY inyourpocket.com N°21 Contents ESSENTIAL CITY GUIDES Arrival & Transport 6 Get your bearings City Basics 8 Facts, habits, attitudes Zurich’s districts 11 Sunglasses in winter: it must be our lucky day! www.juanrubiano.com Know where to go History 12 Nightlife 33 Once upon a time Bars, pubs and clubs Culture & Events 13 Zurich Nord 38 Concerts, shows and exhibitions Restaurants and bars in the north of the city Fasnacht 18 Sightseeing 39 Swiss Carnival - music, masks and partying Churches, parks and museums Quick picks 20 Winter joys 45 Zurich in a nutshell Fondue ships, ice skating and day trips Restaurants 21 Zurich for kids 48 Fine dining, cheesy treats and much more Major fun for minor citizens Cafés 32 Shopping 50 Chocolate, coff ee and conversation Famous jewellers and Swiss design Watches 58 Hotels 60 Hotels, hostels, pensions Queer Zurich 66 Directory 67 Maps & Index Street register 68 City map 70-73 Index 73 Public transport map 74 Waiting for summer: boats at the marina on Utoquai. zuerichfoto.ch Advertisement Advertisement MARKTGASSE 12, ZÜRICH facebook.com/ZurichInYourPocket February - March 2014 3 Foreword Zurich these days is wondering where winter disappeared to before it really got started, apart from debating yet an- Publisher pocket publishing GmbH other anti-immigration proposal from the right-wing SVP Wuhrstrasse 15, 8003 Zürich, and fi ghting about how much noise the airport should tel. +41 32 510 85 76 cause – business as usual really. But one thing in Zurich has zurich@inyourpocket .com, changed – Zurich In Your Pocket has a new, crisper, breezier www.inyourpocket.ch layout! If you’re a regular reader, you’ll have noticed. We Member of Zürich Tourism spiritclub hope you like it and would love to read any comments you Published 6 times per year, 30 000 copies leave on our website. ISSN 1663-9944 © pocket publishing GmbH 2014 But enough of us, you’re here for Zurich! Some of the city’s highlights this February and March are a huge temporary Editorial art space dedicated to photography (p. 16), the opera and Editors Chris Young & Lukas Füglister ballet season (p. 14) and the fact that that beach holiday Research Roman Neumann, Layout Tomáš Haman is still so far off you can indulge in some serious choco- Photos Agata Muszyńska (AM), Juan Rubiano (www.juanrubiano.com), Rolf Müllestein (zuerichfoto.ch), late explorations (p. 52). It’s also the best season for those Zurich Tourism: Caroline Minjolle (CM), Juan Rubiano (JR), cheesy Swiss specialities fondue and raclette (p. 24), which Bruno Macor (BM), Cover Anton Volgger we can honestly recommend, though some may say it’s an acquired taste. And for entertainment of a rather raucous Sales & Circulation kind, try fasnacht, Switzerland’s version of carnival – our General Manager Lukas Füglister feature on page 18 has more. Sales Manager Diego Egloff , sehstoff GmbH, +41 56 210 99 11, diego.egloff @inyourpocket .com Ad rates at www.inyourpocket. ch, COVER STORY closing date next issue: March 14, 2014 Copyright notice & Editor’s note Our cover shows a pier on Text and photos (unless otherwise stated) copyright pocket Bürkliplatz. In summer you publishing GmbH. Maps copyright cartographer. All rights might want to jump off here, reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced in but for now it’s better to just any form without written permission from the copyright let your eyes wander across the owner. The brand name In Your Pocket is used under license lake to the opera house right on from UAB In Your Pocket (Bernardinu 9-4, Vilnius, Lithuania tel. (+370-5) 212 29 76). the left, the stately houses in The editorial content of In Your pocket guides is independent Seefeld and the Alpine peaks of from paid-for advertising. We have made every eff ort to Glarus in the far distance. Photo: ensure the accuracy of all information and assume no Anton Volgger responsibility for changes and errors. ABOUT IYP Place your bet It’s now 22 years since we published the fi rst In Your Pocket guide - to Vilnius on more entertainment ESTONIA in Lithuania - in which time we have LATVIA RUSSIA grown to become the largest publisher Make your stay in Zurich a little more glamorous and much more entertaining. NORTHERN LITHUANIA of locally produced city guides in Eu- IRELAND Swiss Casinos Zürich is open every day from 11:00 am to 4:00 am, and until 5:00 am IRELAND BELARUS rope. We now cover more than 100 cities NETHERLANDS on Thursdays, Fridays and Saturdays. POLAND across the continent (with Gudauri, in GERMANY UKRAINE Georgia, the latest city to be pocketed) BELGIUM CZECH REPUBLIC and the number of concise, witty, well- AUSTRIA HUNGARY written and downright indispensable In SWITZERLAND ROMANIA GEORGIA SLOVENIACROATIA Your Pocket guides published each year ITALY BOSNIA SERBIA is approaching fi ve million. We will be BULGARIA MONTENEGRO expanding even further this year, with FYR MACEDONIA ALBANIA the publication of a guide to Johannes- GREECE burg: our fi rst outside of Europe. To keep up to date with all that’s new at SOUTH In Your Pocket, like us on Facebook (face- AFRICA book.com/inyourpocket) or follow us on Twitter (twitter.com/inyourpocket). Haus Ober, Gessnerallee 3 – 5, 8001 Zurich www.swisscasinos.ch Take the tram to Stauffacher or Sihlstrasse, or the SZU train to Selnau 4 Zurich In Your Pocket zurich.inyourpocket.com Arriving & Getting Around Arriving & Getting Around At the ticket offi ce in the main hall you can buy train tick- ARRIVING BY PLANE ets (also available at the many ticket machines), tickets for TAXIS Zurich International Airport (ZRH) lies 13 kilometres public transport in Zurich and also change money. For time There are 1350 licenced taxis in Zurich and in general they north of the city centre in Kloten and handles around 700 tables and tickets refer to www.sbb.ch or call +41 900 300 are clean, safe, reliable - and expensive. It’s usually easy fl ights a day going to over 170 destinations worldwide. 300 (1.19Sfr/min). to get one, even in rush hours. The city sets the following You can fi nd ATMs and switzerlandinfo desks at Arrival maximum prices for taxis: initial fee 6Sfr, 3.80Sfr per ki- 1 and Arrival 2 just after you pass customs. There you can lometre, 69Sfr per hour. Taxi drivers have to and usually do fi nd free copies of Zurich In Your Pocket. There is a big public ARRIVING BY BUS use their metres. Cheating is rare. Luggage does not cost shopping area with most shops open from 08:00 - 21:00 Buses from other European countries arrive at the bus sta- extra. You’ll fi nd taxis at offi cial taxi stands at the main rail- (groceries from 06:00 - 23:00) and a free Wi-fi for the fi rst 60 tion (Bus Terminal Sihlquai, E-1), two minutes walk north way station, at Central, Bellevue and other places. You can minutes, just connect your device to ’ZurichAirport’. from the main train station. The connections are run by hail them from the streets as well. private companies, most connections are to Eastern and If in doubt stick with the following big companies: To get to town: The easiest and fastest way to get to and Southern Europe. The bus station itself off ers very few facili- Q from the airport is by train. Take one of the fast trains or slow- ties but you can buy some tickets here. Zurich sightseeing TAXI 444 tel. +41 44 444 44 44. Q er S-trains leaving from the underground train station near buses start here as well. TAXI 7x7 tel. +41 44 777 77 77. terminals 1 and 2 - if the sign on the platform reads Zürich HB (HB = Hauptbahnhof = main station), it’s the right train. Up to ten trains leave an hour and the journey takes roughly ARRIVING BY CAR BICYCLES ten minutes. Tickets can be bought at the counters or at the The Swiss highways A1, A2, A3 and A4 lead from all direc- Many locals in Zurich get around town by bicycle. For the ticket machines (switch them to English on the fi rst screen) tions to Zurich and if you follow the signs to Zurich City the The tram stop in a sleek yesteryear style at Paradeplatz. fl at areas around Lake Zurich and the river, a bike is ideal. next to the stairs leading down to the platforms. A ticket for city centre is quite easy to reach. But parking is scarce and Zurich Tourism (BM) an adult is 6.60Sfr and valid for one hour in the whole city very expensive. For overnight parking you can try to fi nd a ZÜRI ROLLT - BIKES FOR FREE (3 zones). If you plan to do more travelling by public trans- slot in the so-called blue zone in residential areas - parking plan on travelling around Switzerland a lot, get a half-fare Bikes to borrow for free - all you need is identifi cation and port, make it a 24-hour ticket for just twice the price. there is free from 19:00 - 08:00, indicate your arrival time on card for one month for 110Sfr - and travel for half the fare 20Sfr as a deposit. The Velostation Süd is provisonary in your parking disk. on all public transport. If you board a train without a valid containers close to track 5.