Zurich tourist tips

Hot tip if you are in Zurich or ever visiting: arrange to see Augusto Giacometti's "Blüemlihalle" - breathtaking frescoes just behind the entrance to...police headquarters?! It's only open 9-11 and 2-4, and you have to give them a passport to get in, and you can only stay 10 minutes, and no pictures are allowed, but it's amazing and completely worth the minor hassle.

Also, I adore having lunch at the Jules Verne bar, which sits just below the Urania Observatory, a telescope installed in the middle of Zürich at the turn of the last century purely to be a tourist attraction(!). Both the bar (which is open for lunch on weekdays and in the evening for drinks) and the observatory (which has tours on Thursday, Friday, and Saturday nights) have beautiful views over the city in all directions.

Inexplicably, we were the only customers there for most of our visit. But that meant lots of time for taking photos!

Just one of the lovely views. The white building on the left by the river houses the Blüemlihalle.

And! we visited the Pavillon Le Corbusier today. This Le Corbusier-designed gallery space had fallen into a state of severe disrepair, but it was renovated and recently reopened. According to one of the explanatory plaques in the exhibition, the renovation luckily did *not* have to include bringing the space up to current building standards because (drum roll please...) the building permit from 1965 had somehow never expired? Anyway it's cool - well ok no, it was in fact uncomfortably hot - but still. I'd like to move in.

So modern.

So not to code. But so cool.

The day ended with a date night with my lovely husband. We went swimming in the lake at Seebad Utoquai, which was completely packed but somehow still awesome. And then we ate ice cream. And a kebab (aka gyros). And it was lovely.

Utoquai at sunset. Yay for summer in Zurich!