Things to do
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Baur au Lac
A hotel of 1844 in its own park where the lake meets the canal, run by the same family for six generations and the address the city's banking clients have used since there was banking here. Wagner gave a first reading of the Ring in it.
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Lake Zurich
Stretching about forty kilometres south-east from the city, this glacial lake has public lidos on both banks inside the city limits. Boats of the lake navigation company run to Rapperswil, whose castle and wooden footbridge make a day trip. Swimming from the lakeside baths is an ordinary summer evening here, and trains follow both shores back.
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Swiss National Museum
Turreted like a castle, this building of 1898 by Gustav Gull stands beside the main station and the Platzspitz park. Its galleries run from prehistory through the Middle Ages to the present, with strong rooms of Gothic art and carved altars. A modern wing opened in 2016, and a visit takes two or three hours.
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Uetliberg
Rising to 870 metres on the city's western edge, this wooded hill is reached by the S10 from the main station in twenty minutes, with trains every half hour. The summit looks over the whole city and lake to the Alps. A panoramic ridge path leads south to Felsenegg, where a cable car drops to Adliswil.
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Fraumuenster
Founded as an abbey for noblewomen in 853, this church on the left bank holds five choir windows by Marc Chagall, installed in 1970 when he was in his eighties. Each has its own dominant colour and Biblical story. In the north transept stands a tall window by Augusto Giacometti. It faces the Muensterhof square across the Limmat from the Grossmuenster.
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Grossmuenster
Twin towers mark this Romanesque church on the right bank, where Huldrych Zwingli preached from 1519 and launched the Swiss Reformation, which is why the interior is bare. The south tower is climbed by 187 steps to a lookout at fifty metres. Windows are by Augusto Giacometti and, since 2009, by Sigmar Polke.
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Kunsthaus Zurich
By exhibition space the largest art museum in the country, with a deep holding of Munch paintings and a major Giacometti collection on long loan. A Chipperfield extension opened in 2021 across Heimplatz and nearly doubled the display space. Allow half a day to see the old building and the new wing together.
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Museum Rietberg
The only museum of non-European art in Switzerland, in three villas in a park south of the centre with an entrance hall sunk into the ground under a green glass canopy. Its Indian and West African holdings are the strongest parts.
