Thu Aug 6 We arrived at the airport in the early evening and had no surprises getting to the hotel via the metro. The hotel was somewhat outside the city central district and required a rather lengthy metro ride. While researching hotels, Dennis found Zurich lodging to be a bit more expensive than the other cities we had visited so this inconvenience was not surprising. The metro stop was only two blocks from the hotel. Another downside to the hotel was that it did not have air conditioning and they didn't have enough fans for all the rooms. So it was a bit warm. In addition, the first night we discovered that the blinds on our windows (automatic heavy metal blinds on the outside of the windows) were broken and wouldn't close. We wanted to have them closed to keep the sun out during the day and the bright street light just outside our room hidden at night. This situation merely exacerbated the lack of air conditioning. The hotel staff was very nice and when the maintenance crew couldn't fix the blinds they moved us to another room very nearby.

Fri Aug 7 By the time we sorted out the starting location of the free walking tour, we had missed it for that day; we wandered around a bit ourselves -lots of jewelry stores where we only window shopped - very beautiful and expensive stuff. As a matter of fact we heard about how expensive Zurich is from locals we met -'that is cheap for Zurich, of course Zurich is very expensive'. We met a young Italian woman who had gone to the University of Zurich and received her engineering degree and was now working in Zurich as she couldn't find a job in Italy. She explained that the salaries are quite high in Zurich compared to Italy and so for her it balances the higher costs. We had read about a festival that was going on the weekend we were there and we decided to attend. The festival was about a 45 minute train ride outside Zurich in the city of Rapperswill. We learned that we could get tickets for the train ride and entrance to the festival at the central train station. So we spent the rest of the afternoon chasing down the ticket office, waiting in a long queuing line, and then ending up at the wrong ticket window. Fortunately the clerk took pity on us and called in the supervisor to figure out how to help us. Because of the remote location, our hotel was a ways from any restaurants. Also, we were in no hurry to get back to the un-air conditioned room, so we spent the early evening looking for "typical Swiss" food. Being bordered by Germany, Italy, and France, we didn't find anything uniquely Swiss. Everything we did find downtown was terribly expensive, so when we finally returned to the hotel, even though it was nearly 10pm, we had pizza delivered.

Sat Aug 8 We took a walking tour that started at 11am. Our guide was a young woman who did a remarkable job of showing us the town and explaining the history, while keeping us in the shade which was a very good thing as the temperature was into the 90's and there were some hills to climb. She was originally from Venezuela and we were her first official tour; she had just been promoted from trainee. She carried a cheat-sheet but only referred to it for certain names and dates. Some of the highlights included the Fraumunster Church with Marc Chagall stained glass windows, historic train station, beautiful wall painting in inner courtyard of one of the churches, and numerous water fountains (not drinking fountains, but constantly flowing (not recirculating), decorative fountains) with fresh, potable water. People filling up water bottles at these decorative fountains was a common sight. We also viewed Grossmunster Protestant church, Limmat River, and lots of hydrangeas. We learned that you can tell the oldest buildings because they will have a name painted or carved somewhere near the front door, the year it was built engraved into the wall, and a shoe scraper depressed and integrated into the wall near the front door (for rainy days before the cobblestones were laid for the streets). We ended at Lindenhof, a wonderful viewpoint at a courtyard with a fountain and shade trees where we could look out over the river and Altstadt (old town). We had eaten breakfast in the hotel restaurant knowing we wouldn't have time for lunch before the tour. After the tour, we searched for an air conditioned luncheon and had to settle for a Burger King -how embarrassing but we enjoyed the cool after the hot afternoon tour.

Throughout the city, for the month of July, they had posted banners with the pictures of local heroes and artworks on the sides of buildings, so we needed to remember to look up so that we didn't miss anything.

The festival we had tickets for is called SeeNachtfest -lucky for us as it only occurs every 4 years. We spent all afternoon and evening at this festival out near the Rapperswill Castle. It takes over the city of Rapperswill which is on the Zurich See (huge lake) -with all streets closed to traffic. Local express trains service the area. We arrived early, when they opened. There were three stages and we had a program with a time schedule so we could bounce back and forth between them to catch all the shows. Not all the stages had shaded areas for the audience, so the early afternoon shows looked unusual as the area right in front of the stage was empty (no shade) while the audience gravitated into the shade on either side of the stage. First, we saw some young children with hula hoops doing some amazing things for their age. At another stage there was a tango performance. This one had some nice shade, picnic benches, and a breeze off the lake, so we stayed there for a while. As the sun began to set and the shadows got longer, we ventured out to view the entire festival area and the other stages. One band performed 70's and 80's rock music (in English). A steel drum band (instruments that look like the tops of 55 gallon drums and are played with drumsticks but sound more like bells) had 3 men and about 10 women in their group and they performed for a couple hours -quite popular. The largest crowd gathered (all standing, no seats at this venue) for Nickless -obviously the current Swiss teenybopper heartthrob. He is a singer/songwriter with three other musicians in his band. He sang in English -mostly love songs and the audience was singing along when so encouraged; he is obviously well known locally.

The Swiss Air Force put on three air performances at different times of the day: Parachutists floated down into the festival grounds, helicopters did fancy maneuvers over the lake, and there was an exhilarating air show by Patrouille Suisse - 9 planes flying in tight formation doing amazing aerobatics. They had a laser and fireworks show after dark which wouldn't be until 10pm or later and as the evening wore on, the crowds got noticeably heavier making it hard to move from stage to stage and to enjoy the performances. So we ate dinner at one of the food booths that provided musical entertainment on their own little stage. We finally got our typical Swiss food - pork and potatoes - delicious. It was quite empty when we sat down but was full when we left -good timing! We almost had to fight our way out as the flow of people into the festival at that point was overwhelming and we had a pleasant train ride back to Zurich. What a wonderful festival - we thoroughly enjoyed our day with the breeze off of the lake providing some relief from the heat.

Sun Aug 9 Took an afternoon flight to Vienna.