Chocolate festival

A chocolate festival is a dream come true whilst living in a country famous for delicious, smooth chocolate but if I'm to be honest it wasn't all THAT good. Perhaps I set my expectations too high for this one, as a chocolate lover might do. The festival was in a small town called Versoix which is very close to Geneva so it was a bit of a drive to get there. Also, we've noticed that most events that are anticipating large numbers of people tend to direct cars to car parks that are a little while away from the event so as to not cause too much congestion near the venue. You then pile onto a shuttle bus with other eager festival goers and it takes you to the doorstep. It sounds like a nice system but in reality it makes travel time long and tedious. The weather was very nice however so we didn't mind it so much.

The festival consisted of a large tent with approximately 15 stalls of Swiss artisan chocolatiers selling their wares. While the tent wasn't overly crowded, each stall was swarmed by people seeking a free taste of the delicious, brown stuff. I'm not too fond of crowds but chocolate is enough to get me in, bumping elbows with the rest of them.

We did the rounds (a few times) and tasted bits of this and bits of that, pretended to be connoisseurs interested in the complexities of each variety but really we just wanted to get our grubby hands on the goods. To buy chocolate there was quite expensive because each thing was made by hand and well, like I've said many times before, things are expensive in Switzerland. I bought a very tasty chocolate mousse which came doused in oozy (that word always makes me think of Nigella) chocolate, a very large strawberry macaron and we both enjoyed a chocolate beer from England.

It was a nice opportunity to visit the lovely Lake Geneva too. The weather was warm and the sun was shining.

Zürich

The weekend before last was a three day weekend because of the catholic holiday "Saint Joseph's Day". Switzerland is divided up into "cantons" rather than "states" and each one is predominately catholic or protestant so some cantons get holidays and some don't. Our canton of Valais had a holiday on the Monday but canton Zürich was open for business as usual. We decided to take advantage of the long weekend and go and explore a part of Switzerland that we haven't seen before. We've travelled a little bit into the German parts of Switzerland but Zürich has been on my list of places to see for a while.

Most of the time driving tends to work out as a cheaper travel option in Switzerland (especially with two people) and is sometimes a little more convenient because you don't have to plan around train times but we both quite enjoy train travel in this little country because well, everyone knows that Switzerland is well known for it's rail system. It's comfortable, clean, extremely punctual, a tad pricey but I think it's quite worth the price. We have a 'demi-tarif' card which allows us to buy half-price tickets. If we didn't have those, I don't think we would ever catch the trains here. Full fare prices are a little too pricey. It costs 41 CHF each way, per person with a demi-tarif and takes around three hours and eight minutes to get there (not a minute more since they're so bloody reliable), so it's a nice opportunity to sit back, get comfortable, put on a bit of music in the headphones and catch up on some reading. The ride is so smooth and the views out of the window are of rolling meadows and grand, majestic mountains which you can never get sick of looking at.

We arrived in Zürich, found a tram to take us to our fancy hotel (got the deal of the day on booking.com), checked in, got our bearings and headed out to explore a city which is probably typically swiss to most people but very different to the Switzerland that I have come to know. I must admit, there is no shortage of ritzy and fancy things in all of Switzerland but Zürich just took it to another level. There were Ferraris, Porsches and Gucci clad people all around and Roy and I didn't do too well blending in with out H&M gear and dusty shoes (which weren't dusty for long due to the fact that our fancy hotel had a shoe shining machine).

That's a guy on a Segway!

We wandered down the opulent Bahnhofstrasse and watched as people exited Louis Vuitton (wow! spell check even has 'Vuitton') and Tiffany's with branded bags and continued on with their shopping exploits. We felt a little out of the scene but it was quite fun seeing what people actually spent money on. We did however, stop in at 'Sprüngli' because my stomach pretty much governs every decision I make. We admired the handmade chocolates and the bountiful macarons and I couldn't pass up the opportunity to sample some of the fare. I pointed at four very colourful, petit macarons and the lady boxed them up and as soon as we exited I had to eat them. It took me about .5 seconds to devour them leaving little time to savour the flavour... they were delicious!

A ferris wheel sits by the lake so we thought that it might be a nice way to check out the city. It's hard to get your bearings when you're nestled amongst the buildings so it's nice to get a view from above. Around and around we went pointing at the fancy cars and lovely buildings and looked for things to explore next.

For the design nerds out there - we checked out the "Heidi Weber Museum by Le Corbusier" which was closed but we wandered around the outside. It was pretty weird looking but I'm sure that when I was right into design I would be have been heaps more interested in it.

We ate lunch on the first day at a beer hall which served some local favourites - mainly sausages with potatoes and house beer. I had something a little less swiss - spinach and ricotta tortellini, which to my surprise was very enjoyable.

The next five meals were eaten at a place that has become my favourite place in Switzerland. I'd heard about this place from a friend and it also happens to be at the top of most lists of places to eat in Zürich. After we went there the first time we were hooked so we had to keep going back. It's a place called "Hiltl" and it claims to be Europe's oldest vegetarian restaurant (1898). It's a very hip and stylish bar with an abounding selection of delectable vegetarian meals set out on a long buffet bar. You take a plate, pile on the food, take it to the bar where you place it onto a scale, pay 4.50CHF per 100g which sounds crazy but since you're able to choose how much to eat it works out to be a very reasonably priced meal (unless you're a piggy). The great part is, they also have a breakfast buffet. So we were back there for breakfast, lunch and dinner. Roy and I have become accustomed to paying upwards of 20CHF each for meals in Switzerland but at Hiltl we were able to eat for about 10/15CHF each AND the food was GREAT! Another place we ate at was "Tibits" which is a place run by Hiltl and it was much the same but not as much food to choose from.

note the happy glow of contentment.

Zürich has a fantastic tram system that makes all corners of the city accessible and very easy to get around. A nice city to explore indeed!

There were lots of buildings with these lovely enclosed balconies. They look like a lovely place to sit and read a book.

Just a small section of the Easter treats they have on offer at the supermarkets. One would expect that a country known for it's chocolate would have fantastic easter fare!