Lake, old town, and Switzerland's rail front door
Destinations › Europe › Zurich
Zurich is where almost every Swiss trip actually begins, because the airport has a full SBB station underneath it and you can be on a train to anywhere in the country without ever going outside. The city itself is compact enough to walk - Grossmünster, the Lindenhof terrace and the Kunsthaus are all within a short stretch of the Limmat - and the lake is a tram ride from the main station.
There is a genuine nonstop from Toronto Pearson. Air Canada operates YYZ-ZRH as AC880 outbound and AC881 returning, a flight of roughly eight hours; SWISS has also served Toronto, but it launched and has run the route as a seasonal summer connection rather than a year-round one, so check your dates. You land at Zurich Airport (ZRH). The rail station, Zürich Flughafen, sits directly underneath the Airport Centre - the main ground-side passenger terminal - so you go from arrivals to a platform without leaving the building. From there the ZVV S-Bahn lines S2, S16 and S24 all run to Zürich Hauptbahnhof (Zürich HB), alongside SBB long-distance InterCity, InterRegio and EuroCity services. There is no separate premium airport express and no need for one: it is an ordinary suburban train on an ordinary ticket.
The network is the ZVV (Zürcher Verkehrsverbund), the integrated authority that covers VBZ trams and buses in the city, SBB S-Bahn trains, regional buses and the lake boats on one ticket. ZVV puts the fare rule plainly: 'The price of your ticket is determined by the number of zones you travel through.' The quirk that catches people is the next line - 'Fare zones 110 (City of Zurich) and 120 (City of Winterthur) count double where prices are calculated' - so a trip that feels like one zone inside the city is charged as two. Zurich Airport sits in zone 121, so an airport-to-city trip spans 121 plus the double-counted 110. Buy for the correct zones before you board, and finish the journey inside the ticket's validity. ZVV sells 24-hour tickets for a day of moving around; for a sightseeing stay, the Zürich Card is the more sensible instrument.
Zurich's twin-towered landmark, with the Karlsturm tower open to climb for a view over the rooftops. One live caveat: the church is in a long restoration and has been going progressively behind scaffolding, so confirm current tower access before building a day around it. Pair it with Lindenhof, the tree-shaded terrace above the Limmat that looks across to Niederdorf - a short climb up from the river and the best free viewpoint in the centre.
One of the most important art collections in Switzerland, running from the Middle Ages to the present rather than a civic gallery of local painting - the single museum most worth prioritising if you only do one. It is closed on Mondays, which is the standard Zurich museum pattern.
The city's own mountain, reached on S-Bahn line S10 from the main station plus a short walk up to the lookout, with the city, the lake and the Alps laid out below. S10 is a ZVV line, so it is a normal transit trip rather than an excursion.
ZSG (Zürichsee-Schifffahrtsgesellschaft) runs the lake boats, from short round trips to longer runs. The separate Limmat River Cruise starts at the Landesmuseum and works down past Lindenhof, the guild houses, the Rathaus and the Grossmünster to the lake and back; it is a seasonal service, running roughly spring to autumn. Both sit inside the transit system rather than being private tour operators - ZVV tickets and the Zürich Card cover them.
Everything a first-timer wants inside a ten-minute walk of Zürich HB: the Grossmünster, Fraumünster, St. Peter, the Limmat quays and the Lindenhof terrace. Suits short stays and anyone who does not want to learn the tram map. Does NOT suit light sleepers — Niederdorf is the late-night lane — and does NOT suit anyone watching room rates. Also worth knowing: the climbs up to Lindenhof and St. Peter are short but properly steep and cobbled.
The cheaper, younger half of the city. Kreis 5 is old industry converted — the railway viaduct arches with their market hall, ex-factory bars, tram roughly ten minutes to the centre. Suits people who want to eat and drink where locals do. Does NOT suit families or early sleepers: Langstrasse was the red-light strip and still trades hard on nightlife after dark.
Lakeside and residential, flat walking along the Zürichhorn promenade, swimming spots in summer, trams straight to Bellevue and the Opera. The easiest base if you are travelling with parents who want level ground and a bench with a view. Does NOT suit budget travellers, and it is quiet in the evening — you come back into town to eat.
Not a sightseeing choice, a logistics one. It sits on the S-Bahn between the airport and Zürich HB, so it is the sensible place to sleep before a dawn YYZ-bound flight or after a late arrival. Suits layovers and business trips. Does NOT suit anyone with two days in Zurich — there is nothing here you came for, and you will spend the whole stay commuting inward.
The city's own dish: thin-sliced veal in a cream-and-white-wine sauce with mushrooms, served over rösti, the grated fried potato cake. The old guild dining rooms — the Zunfthäuser along the Limmat in Kreis 1 — are still where it is served most formally. Expect a proper sit-down lunch, not a quick plate.
Zurich's grill-stand order: a pale, mild veal sausage, usually with sweet mustard and a crusty Bürli roll served alongside rather than around it — you eat it two-fisted, bite of sausage, bite of bread. Stands cluster around Bellevue, Bürkliplatz and the Hauptbahnhof concourse, and the station versions are among the few things trading on a Sunday.
Bürkliplatz on the lake and Helvetiaplatz in Kreis 4 both run long-standing farmers' markets on Tuesday and Friday mornings — cheese, bread, charcuterie, flowers — and they wind down early rather than running all day. Bürkliplatz also hosts a flea market on Saturdays in the warmer months. The all-week alternative is the Markthalle im Viadukt in Kreis 5, a covered row of producers and counters built into the railway arches. Market days shift around public holidays, so check before you build a morning around one.
This is where the cliché is actually true. The confiseries along Bahnhofstrasse and in the Altstadt sell truffles by weight and the small pastel meringue-and-cream macarons that Zurich treats as a local invention. Buy in the morning — they are made to be eaten the same day, and Sunday closures apply to shops though not to the station outlets.
Walk south out of Zürich HB down Bahnhofstrasse, then cut left and climb to the Lindenhof terrace. It is a free, tree-shaded platform above the Limmat looking across at Niederdorf, and it is the best viewpoint in the centre. Fifteen flat minutes of walking plus one short steep flight — no transit needed for any of this.
Down off Lindenhof to St. Peter and its outsized clock face, along to Fraumünster, then over the Münsterbrücke to Grossmünster and into the Niederdorf lanes. Each is a five-minute walk from the last. Grossmünster's tower climb has been disrupted by restoration work in recent years, so confirm access on the day rather than planning the morning around the climb.
Tram 3 one stop up from Bellevue to the Kunsthaus stop, or walk it in ten minutes from Grossmünster. The single collection worth prioritising if you only do one, running medieval to contemporary rather than local-painters-only. Like most Zurich museums it closes on Mondays — confirm the day before you build an afternoon around it.
Tram 4 or 17 to Escher-Wyss-Platz, then explore on foot: the Viadukt arches, the Markthalle, the converted industrial blocks. This is the part of the city that looks nothing like the postcard, and it is a fifteen-minute tram from the Old Town.
S-Bahn line S10 from Zürich HB up the city's own mountain — an ordinary ZVV journey rather than an excursion railway, though Uetliberg sits outside the central city zone, so make sure your ticket or pass covers the extra zone. From Uetliberg station it is roughly ten minutes uphill on a made path to the lookout, with the city, the lake and the Alps below.
S10 back to Zürich HB and walk down Bahnhofstrasse to Bürkliplatz. From there ZSG runs the Lake Zurich boats, from short round trips to long runs down the lake, and the separate Limmat river boat works up past Lindenhof and the guild houses from the Landesmuseum. The short lake round trip and the river boat sit inside the ZVV system and are covered by the Zürich Card; the longer lake sailings cross more zones and need a ticket to match, so ask at the landing stage. The river boat is seasonal, roughly spring to autumn.
The best single day out of Zurich. SBB's InterRegio IR70 runs direct from Zürich HB in around three-quarters of an hour, with departures right through the day, so you can go on a whim. Chapel Bridge, the covered wooden waterfront, the lake — and Lucerne is itself the springboard for the Rigi and Pilatus mountain railways if you want to keep going up.
Billed as the largest waterfall in Europe, and in spring meltwater it earns the billing. About an hour from Zürich HB on S-Bahn line S9 direct to Neuhausen Rheinfall for the north bank. The south bank has its own station, Schloss Laufen am Rheinfall, a few minutes out of Schaffhausen on the local line, which puts you at the castle viewing platforms and the boat landing. Pair it with an hour in Schaffhausen's old town.
The 'town of roses' at the far end of Lake Zurich, with a castle above the water. Go out fast on S-Bahn S5 or S7 and come back slowly on a ZSG lake boat to Bürkliplatz, which turns a short trip into a proper day. If you want to keep travelling, the Voralpen-Express — Südostbahn's named panoramic service — runs from Rapperswil through to Lucerne and St. Gallen.
Zurich is one of the gentler European cities for anyone bringing parents or pushing a stroller, but it is not uniformly easy. Transit is the strong part: the Cobra and Flexity cars that make up most of the VBZ tram fleet are low-floor, city buses are low-floor and kneel at the kerb, and both Zürich HB and the airport station are lift-served. It is not yet uniform, though. Older high-floor trams still turn up on some lines, and VBZ publishes accessibility line by line rather than promising it everywhere — so if you are in a chair, check your specific line on the VBZ site before you set out, and let an awkward tram go rather than fighting a step. The Old Town is the hard part, and it is hard in a specific way. Kreis 1 is cobbled, and the lanes climbing to Lindenhof and up to St. Peter are steep enough that a wheelchair needs a second pair of hands and a heavy stroller is a workout. It is short, though — this is not Lisbon or Porto, where the hills go on for kilometres. Flat, easy alternatives are close by: the Seefeld and Enge lake promenades are level and pram-friendly for as long as you want to walk, the ZSG boats board from the quay, and Uetliberg is reached by S-Bahn rather than on foot, though the final stretch from station to lookout is uphill on gravel. Two practical things that catch GTA families. Sunday is a genuinely closed day — shops shut, with station retail the standard exception — and most museums, the Kunsthaus included, close on Mondays; land on the wrong pair of days and a short trip loses a lot. And summer is usually kinder than a Toronto July, with public drinking fountains everywhere for refills — though Zurich does get proper heatwaves, and very little of the Old Town is air-conditioned.
Switzerland is not on the euro. The Swiss franc (CHF) is the currency, and while some airport and tourist tills will take euro notes, they give change in francs at a rate you will not enjoy. The bigger trap is at the card terminal: if it offers to bill you in Canadian dollars, decline and choose francs. That is dynamic currency conversion, the markup is set by the merchant's provider, and your card issuer may still charge its own foreign-transaction fee on top.
Switzerland is close to fully cashless for a visitor. Cards and phone wallets work in shops, restaurants, ticket machines, on the trams and on the mountain railways. Keep a small amount of francs for market stalls, farm honesty boxes and the occasional small mountain hut. Credit card and ATM fraud is one of the crime categories Global Affairs Canada flags for Switzerland — use machines inside banks and stations rather than free-standing ones.
Service is included in Swiss prices and the bill is the bill. Rounding up to the next convenient figure is normal and appreciated; a North American percentage is not expected and adding one marks you out. Hand the rounded total to the server rather than leaving coins on the table.
Switzerland uses its own Type J three-pin plug (SEV 1011) at 230 volts, 50 Hz. This is the single most common electrical mistake Canadians make here: the flat Schuko / Type F 'Europe adapter' sold for Germany, France and Italy does NOT fit a Swiss socket — its pins are too thick. A slim two-pin Type C europlug does fit. Buy a Switzerland-specific adapter or one explicitly listing Type J. Chargers marked 100–240V are fine on their own; a 120V-only appliance is not, adapter or no adapter.
Safe from every tap in the country, and Zurich runs well over a thousand public street fountains fed by the same mains supply. Unless a fountain is signed 'Kein Trinkwasser', fill your bottle. Buying bottled water here is money set on fire.
Swiss German (Züridütsch) is what you hear; standard German is what is written; English is spoken almost universally in the city. Global Affairs Canada rates Switzerland 'take normal security precautions' — the thing it singles out is pickpocketing, in crowded places like the Hauptbahnhof, on trains and at the airport. Bag in front on the platform, and that is genuinely the extent of it.
Summer is the obvious answer - the lake is the whole point of Zurich in warm weather, with swimming spots, boats and long evenings. Advent is the other strong case: Zurich runs several Christmas markets simultaneously. The largest is the Wienachtsdorf on Sechseläutenplatz at Bellevue, in front of the opera house, which Zürich Tourism describes as some 100 market stalls; there is also a market in the main station concourse, currently staged as Polarzauber, and a smaller one in the Old Town. They run through the Advent weeks and wind up shortly before Christmas. Two closure patterns matter more than weather. Sunday is a real closed day in Switzerland - shops are shut, though station retail is the standard exception - and most museums close one day a week, usually Monday, the Kunsthaus among them. Neither is a hardship if you plan around it and a genuine annoyance if you do not.
Compare the ways to get there, then build a day-by-day plan.
There is a genuine nonstop from Toronto Pearson. Air Canada operates YYZ-ZRH as AC880 outbound and AC881 returning, a flight of roughly eight hours; SWISS has also served Toronto, but it launched and has run the route as a seasonal summer connection rather than a year-round one, so check your dates. You land at Zurich Airport (ZRH). The rail station, Zürich Flughafen, sits directly underneath the Airport Centre - the main ground-side passenger terminal - so you go from arrivals to a platform without leaving the building. From there the ZVV S-Bahn lines S2, S16 and S24 all run to Zürich Hauptbahnhof (Zürich HB), alongside SBB long-distance InterCity, InterRegio and EuroCity services. There is no separate premium airport express and no need for one: it is an ordinary suburban train on an ordinary ticket.
The network is the ZVV (Zürcher Verkehrsverbund), the integrated authority that covers VBZ trams and buses in the city, SBB S-Bahn trains, regional buses and the lake boats on one ticket. ZVV puts the fare rule plainly: 'The price of your ticket is determined by the number of zones you travel through.' The quirk that catches people is the next line - 'Fare zones 110 (City of Zurich) and 120 (City of Winterthur) count double where prices are calculated' - so a trip that feels like one zone inside the city is charged as two. Zurich Airport sits in zone 121, so an airport-to-city trip spans 121 plus the double-counted 110. Buy for the correct zones before you board, and finish the journey inside the ticket's validity. ZVV sells 24-hour tickets for a day of moving around; for a sightseeing stay, the Zürich Card is the more sensible instrument.
Summer is the obvious answer - the lake is the whole point of Zurich in warm weather, with swimming spots, boats and long evenings. Advent is the other strong case: Zurich runs several Christmas markets simultaneously. The largest is the Wienachtsdorf on Sechseläutenplatz at Bellevue, in front of the opera house, which Zürich Tourism describes as some 100 market stalls; there is also a market in the main station concourse, currently staged as Polarzauber, and a smaller one in the Old Town. They run through the Advent weeks and wind up shortly before Christmas. Two closure patterns matter more than weather. Sunday is a real closed day in Switzerland - shops are shut, though station retail is the standard exception - and most museums close one day a week, usually Monday, the Kunsthaus among them. Neither is a hardship if you plan around it and a genuine annoyance if you do not.