Ok, there seems to be a common theme emerging in my posts from Zürich this week: food. My walk today began as another foggy morning, and indeed the day never shook off the fog. Perhaps it is all the snow sublimating in these just-above-freezing temperatures.
So when my downhill route took me near Honold, I just had to stop in. Had to. I’ll bet there is even some Swiss law about cold foggy mornings, and excellent chocolate/pastry shops, that requires one to stop in for a heisse shoggi (hot chocolate). I used to visit this very shop at least once a week when I was living here.
I enjoyed the hot chocolate for the rest of the walk, though I did somehow get out without succumbing to the other tasty treats!
Ok, sushi is not what one always thinks of first, when one thinks of food in Switzerland. But tonight we were looking for something a little different, so we stopped into Yooji’s and down to their basement dining room. There, a continuous train of sushi circulates past the customers seated on stools around the central kitchen area. Many tempting treats scoot by…
Yooji’s sushi bar, with a rotating track filled with a variety of sushi.
The price is determined by the color of the plate, as in other such restaurants. One cool feature of this shop is that you can remove a plate from the track, set it on the “infopoint” at your place, and the small iPad-like tablet in front of you will show a photograph and description of the item, in case you are wondering about the ingredients. Don’t like what you see? put it back on the track. Want to order a drink, or something special? Tap the tablet and point at what you want.
After our meal, a stack of plates and bowls derive the cost. Note also the Infopoint.
When finished, the staff come by to account for your plates. Brace yourself for the bill!
It was a densely foggy morning, as I climbed to my usual outlook above the streets of Zürich. I was in the fog almost as soon as I left my hotel, at river level, and climbed 212m up through the fog to the Zürichberg viewpoint. Not surprisingly, there was nothing to see today but for the sign illustrating what distant mountains could be seen on a better day (like yesterday).
Foggy morning at Zurichberg viewpoint.
More of the snow and ice had melted from the pathways, so I took a different route down – through the forest and back to the roadway, at the spot known as Rigiblick. There, I encountered a smiling set of sentries guarding the house beside the path.
Last week’s snow persists high on Zurichberg, where one home assembled a friendly family of snow soldiers.
Directly across the street is the top station for a funicular tram – a pair of trams on a track, attached to a cable, one descending while the other ascends. The sign advertised a departure in 2 minutes, so I hopped aboard and rode in comfort down the steep slope, approximately halfway to my starting point. Below, I look back up the track from the bottom.
Rigiblick funicular railway tracks.
This path home is always risky, passing as it does by a Migros grocery store and two wonderful bakeries. I broke down and popped into a bakery for a gipfel (like a croissant) and headed on home, a fine way to spend the morning.
I returned to my morning walking route, climbing through the streets and stairs of Zurich to the viewpoint atop Zurichberg. Today, I arrived not long after sunrise; with fewer clouds, the sun shone through to the Zurich valley. Indeed, it seemed the orange glow of the rising sun was bouncing off the cloud deck above, illuminating the light fog hovering over the lake Zurichsee.
Sunrise view from the Zurichberg viewpoint, Zurich.
Zooming in to the Alps spread across the horizon, we can see the morning sun illuminating the Eiger and its neighbors.
The Eiger is the dark triangle just left of center.
Earlier, I paused along Spyristrasse at a point where I knew one of the multi-story condo buildings hosted an impressive sight: a three-story cat staircase, mounted outside the building, allowing the cat to come and go from its residential balcony. Today, for the first time ever, I saw a cat sitting atop the stairs, surveying its territory and guarding the homestead from all comers.
A cat rests at the top of a three-story cat staircase on the outside of a condo building; Spyristrasse, Zurich.
I was sad to leave Zürich in July 2020, after spending a delightful year collaborating at ETH and exploring the many mountains and valleys of this beautiful country. The coronavirus pandemic had arrived only a few months earlier, but I somehow thought it would fade and I could make a return visit to Switzerland a few months later. That was naīve. Another year has passed and the pandemic is not yet done with us; nonetheless, three months ago Andy and I booked our tickets to Zürich so we could visit friends and colleagues and enjoy the city and the mountains once again.
Our family gathers for Thanksgiving in a meadow on Wadmalaw Island, South Carolina, for a feast and family reunion. In recent decades it has been held every year, on even years – but last year we had to postpone it due to the pandemic. So it was with great excitement and relief when the family gathered again, this year, reconnecting after three years. Only 80 attended this year – whereas almost 120 appeared three years ago – but it was a beautiful day, with fine weather and fine food and fine family.
Lunch was a potluck event, with an incredible spread of salads, sides, meats, and desserts.
Family lines up for the Thanksgiving feast.
The meadow is surrounded by oaks adorned by Spanish moss, adjacent to a pond filled with brilliant green duckweed.
Spanish moss on the oaks at Wadmalaw.
After lunch, a skeet-shooting contest.
The skeet-shooting contest at Wadmalaw.Spanish moss on the oaks at Wadmalaw.
I woke suddenly as the cat jumped onto the bed and leapt over my face to get to the other side. He likes that side, as it makes a good vantage point to look out the window and survey his territory. Following his gaze, I noted it was still quite dark – too dark to be yet awake – but with a sky more clear than had been forecast. I rolled over for a better angle and, yes, there she was, the full moon setting into the west. A partial lunar eclipse had begun a couple hours earlier, and I was fortunate to be able to see it still underway. Apparently, this was the longest eclipse of its kind in 580 years.
By the time I fetched my cameras – I was unprepared because the forecast was for clouds and even some snowfall – the moon had settled behind thick clouds. I waited, not too patiently I might add, because the eclipse was rapidly fading behind those clouds. When the moon re-emerged, I snapped a quick photo in which you can barely discern the remaining eclipsed portion at lower right.
At the tail end of a lunar eclipse, the remaining occluded portion of the moon is visible but also occluded by a bit of cloud.
The moon disappeared behind more clouds and the branches of a leafless tree. When it reemerged, and I had relocated outdoors, the beaver moon shone again in its full glory. Exposure was tricky, and I never got it right before the moon set behind its final cloud bedding for the night.
Full moon setting after a lunar eclipse.
I used a Nikon D500 with a Nikon 200-500mm f5.6 lens. For more impressive photos – from better prepared, better located, better skilled photographers, check out this space.com site.
Today I went out with a friend for a short hike in the hills on the eastern side of Hanover. It was a warm afternoon, but we were surprised to see an inch of fresh snow on the leaf-covered forest floor, with melting snow dripping from the fir trees overhead. It rained hard here last night – down along the Connecticut River – but only a few hundred feet higher it had apparently snowed.
First snow along the trails of the Shumway Forest in eastern Hanover, with views to Moose, Smarts, and Moosilauke.
It was nonetheless a lovely hike through the forest along a set of trails managed by the Hanover Conservancy, culminating in a series of rocky overlooks on the ledges of the ridge that extends south from Moose Mountain.
First snow along the trails of the Shumway Forest in eastern Hanover, with views to Moose, Smarts, and Moosilauke.
We wore bright-orange vests, because this weekend is the first big weekend of deer season, and we could frequently hear the report of rifle shots in the valley to the east. The sight of snow – as much as an inch of heavy, wet snow in some areas – reminds me of how quickly winter is coming.
Hike stats: Distance: 3.94km Time: 1h12m Map: see red route below. (The green route refers to my prior visit)
Today I enjoyed the last fresh raspberries from our berry patch – incredibly, due to the unusually warm fall weather, we’ve been harvesting berries right into November. And, despite eating a handful of berries with my breakfast every day, we’ve put away ten pounds of raspberries in the freezer. I look forward to enjoying them all winter!
Ten pounds is 15 very full quart-sized ziplock bags; two full grocery bags!
David Kotz 