Another interesting Röthlisberger statue about an important village role in 19th- and early 20th-century Switzerland.
dr Fäudmuser – Röthlisberger
Another interesting Röthlisberger statue.
Tag: Zurich
Zwinglistadt 2019
A curious statue of Zwingli.
The streets were nearly deserted during my early-morning walk about the old district of Zürich. Churches, normally busy on a beautiful Easter morning like this one, were all closed due to coronavirus. At one point I stepped into a tiny courtyard on the backside of St. Peter Church and encountered this rather unusual statue of a local notable.
Ulrich Zwingli founded the Reformation in Switzerland in Zürich; it and many other Swiss cantons rejected Catholicism and “reformed” their churches into Protestant churches. The year was 1519, exactly 500 years ago. Zürich celebrated the 500th anniversary of the Reformation throughout 2019 [website], including (it appears) the commission, display, and later auction of a set of statues of Zwingli. In this one, according to the sign, Zwingli is puzzled by climate change and bemoans the amount of waste. He is holding, by a chain, a ball of waste plastics and electronics.
St. Peter itself has a very interesting history. Among other things, St. Peter has the largest tower clock face in Europe. [Wikipedia]
Zwänzgerle
I was sad to miss the opportunity to witness one of Zürich’s most curious traditions, as it was cancelled this year.
I’ve read that Switzerland has many unusual Easter traditions, but I was particularly looking forward to Zwänzgerle, a Zürich tradition that dates back to the 18th century.
Held every year on “Easter Monday” (the day after Easter), people gather in the old-town vicinity of Rüdenplatz to play this game. As noted by the city’s tourism web site, “adults throw 20-cent coins at hard-boiled eggs held out by children with the aim of making them lodge in the shell. If they succeed, the thrower keeps the egg and the coin. An almost impossible task – much to the delight of the children, as every coin that falls to the ground instead of sticking in the egg belongs to them.”
I have no photos (of my own) to share – but that tourism page (now gone) has a few brief video clips, and an Aargau newspaper posted a cute video a couple years ago (now removed). Wikipedia has a few more details [in German] about this fun tradition related to “egg tapping” practiced elsewhere.
Happy Zwänzgerle!
Easter morning in Zürich
A beautiful – though quiet – Easter morning on the streets of Zürich.
Easter is a major four-day holiday weekend in Switzerland, and in Zürich. With dozens of churches and cathedrals dotting the old city, one might normally expect to encounter hundreds of churchgoers during a stroll around altstadt on Easter morning… but this year is anything but typical. Nonetheless, it was a beautiful morning to wander the streets and take photographs – low morning light, blue skies, and virtually no pedestrians or traffic.
St. Peter’s church was closed, as with all the others, but one lone woman sat quietly in the square, facing the church, enjoying her own silent Easter mass.
Our flat is neighbor to the Liebfrauen church, whose bells rang for 15 minutes this morning [15sec video]. Come to think of it, they do that every morning and every evening.
Meanwhile, the tulips are in peak bloom throughout the city gardens.
May peace be with you, and the world.
Handy – Röthlisberger
The one Röthlisberger statue focused on a contemporary figure.
Today’s visit to the Röthlisberger statues, on Zürichberg, includes a photo taken just 12 days ago. With afternoon temperatures now balmy in the low 20sºC (72ºF yesterday), it’s hard to remember that it snowed just 12 mornings ago.
Spazzacamini – Röthlisberger
Another in my series of Röthlisberger statues from Zürichberg.
As I noted earlier, I am captivated by the set of Röthlisberger bronze statues on Zürichberg, each with an explanatory note – often of historical interest. In this case, a sad reference to the 19th-century Ticino practice of selling children to work as slaves in Italy – as chimneysweeps.
ds Zigermannli – Röthlisberger
Röthlisberger statue on Zurichberg.
The high point of my morning walk is a viewpoint on Zürichberg that overlooks the city, the lake, and the hills and Alpine mountains beyond. But I often walk further, following the path south along the slope. Within a few hundred meters I pass a pleasant little park that currently includes an installation of bronze statues by Zürich artist Freddy Air Röthlisberger. I find these pieces captivating, in part because each comes with a brief explanation that provides a tidbit of Swiss history. I’ll post them in a series. The first tidbit is particularly tasty :-).
Morning on the Limmat
A pretty morning view across the Limmat toward old Zurich.
Today my morning walk took me downhill, along the Limmat river to the edge of the lake, and back through old town. The early morning light was nicely illuminating old-town Zürich across the Limmat river.
ETH Sphinx
A mysterious pair of lamps outside the ETH main building.
On sunny days it can be nice to walk past the west side the ETH main building – where there is an expansive stone courtyard with spectacular views across the city and to the distant Alps. It’s long struck me as odd that the west entrance to this classical-style building, in rather drab grey stone, is flanked by a pair of golden lampposts.
Surely they are not made of gold, or even painted with gold paint, but on a sunny day they are nonetheless brilliant in their contrast with the surroundings. Each is supported with three legs, each of which is a buxom one-legged sphinx character. Apparently sphinx icons were quite popular in Europe during the Rennaissance.
I can find no online explanation for the ETH lamps, nor any nearby signage to indicate the meaning or import of these lamps and their golden paint. The base of each lamp indicates the name of its foundry, in nearby Winterthur, but no more. Perhaps they are a warning to the students who enter ETH, based on the traditional Greek origin of the sphinx: “She is mythicised as treacherous and merciless. Those who cannot answer her riddle suffer a fate typical in such mythological stories, as they are killed and eaten by this ravenous monster.” [Wikipedia]
Morning walk
A time-lapse movie of my walk to Zürichberg.
I enjoy my walk to Zurichberg every day, and have long wanted to share it. So today I experimented with a time-lapse movie. The walk to the viewpoint took me 23 minutes; the movie will take you one minute to watch. (For the steep parts you unfortunately get a close look at the stairs, not the pretty scenery. I’ll have to experiment further!)
The map below is from another day, when I continued clockwise past the “End” to return home.
David Kotz 