C H R I S T M A S M A R K E T S in Switzerland!!!

Christmas shopping takes on a whole new meaning in Switzerland!

When I told my friends and family that I would be in Switzerland over the holidays, many replied with ohhhhhhhhh, you'll be there for the Christmas Markets!!! I could only imagine what this meant.

That was, until I first entered the Zurich Main (train) Station on my very first day in Switzerland. As Doug and I exited the train and walked towards the center of the station you could feel the excitement in the air. We turned the corner and I got my first sight of Europe's largest indoor Christmas Market. It was being set up, but you could see the beginnings of a specular exhibition.

Thousands of fairly white lights, the enticing aroma of Glühwein (mulled wine), pastries/cookies and many many items to be purchased.

Zurich Christmas Fair in ShopVille-RailCity Zürich 

Zurich's Main Station (Hauptbahnhof) accommodates more than 160 wooden chalets- a great source of inspiration for gifts.  There was a 50 ft. Christmas tree decorated with over 5,000 Swarovski Crystal Ornaments. There were new smells, handmade crafts, trinkets, foods, and fantastic people-watching. 

What I didn't know, but would soon learn was that this was just the first of many Christmas Markets that I would be exploring during the weeks prior to Christmas Day. 

A 'typical' Christmas market consists of numerous stalls on the streets and squares of a place, often before the historic backdrop. There are Christmas baked goods such as print gingerbread, Christstollen, various sweets such as chocolate figurines, candy floss, roasted almonds, hot roasted chestnuts and hot meals are offered. The wooden chalets sell Christmas items, jewelry, tinsel, nativity scenes, candles, carved nutcrackers, knitted items, and much more. 

The history of Christmas markets goes back to the late Middle Ages in the German speaking part of Europe. The Dresden Christmas market was first held in 1434. In many communities Advent is usually ushered in with the opening of the Christmas market or Weihnachtsmarkt. In Switzerland, I've been told, the Christmas market idea is comparatively new, introduced just 30 years ago, but none the less wonderful.

Poster for the Meilener Weinachtsmarkt 

(the subject of a future blog posting)

Below is a list of the Christmas Markets I had the opportunity to visit during the holidays.

• Christkindlimärt Rapperswil-Jona - a wonderful market at the base of the Capuchin monastery in Rapperswil ... December 1 - 14
• Einsiedler Weihnachtmarkt - in front of the Benedictine Abbey of Einsiedeln ... November 29th - December 8th
• Meilener Weinachtsmarkt - a small community southeast of Zurich on the "gold coast" of Lake Zurich ... November 30th
• Zurcher Christmas Market der Altstadt - throughout the cobblestone streets of old town Zurich ... December 8 - 23rd
• Winterthur Christmas Market - throughout the meandering streets of Winterthur ... December 2 - 23rd
  
• Berner Weihnachtmarkt - is held on the square inside the UNESCO World Cultural Heritage listed old town with its cobblestone streets

So ... what do they look like?? Below are just 3 of the nearly 250 photos that Doug and I took of the various Christmas markets we enjoyed.

The Bahnhofstrasse, Zurich ... one of the world's most expensive and exclusive shopping areas.

Looking up towards the Benedictine Abbey of Einsiedeln with their 

Christmas Market in the foreground. 

Christkindlimärt in Rapperswil. This was one of my favorite backdrops for a Swiss Christmas Market, and a spectacular one at that.

Grüezi Miteinander

G R Ü E Z I 

pronounced:  grü-e-tsi

English translation: 'hello' or 'I greet you'

"Grüezi"

I heard this from people who sat next to me on the trams, from individuals I'd meet walking down the street, and even from store clerks. 

"What is Grüezi?" I'd say to myself, and just smile and tip my head a bit at the Swiss-German I had just crossed paths with. This was happening every day. I knew it was some sort of greeting, but other than that I was clueless. 

That was, until Saturday the 29th of November. 

Doug and I were invited to dinner in Meilen with our new Swiss friends, the Sprengers. We met Iris & Paul at the train station and then proceeded to take a walk along a view path between the bluffs over looking Lake Zurich and the open fields. Time and again we would pass people who said 'Gruezi' and Iris would respond 'Gruezi miteinander'. Finally, I had someone to explain this Swiss-German greeting! And so she did... she shared with me that this phrase is used to greet someone and you should return the greeting. I practiced my pronunciation.

Now I got it!  Finally I could stop looking foolish and be polite to the people I meet in Switzerland. 

To gain a clear grasp of this Swiss greeting and other similar phrases ... check out the posting on Swisstoryblog.com for Tuesday, September 9, 2008 titled Swiss Greetings 101. Jessica provides an excellent explanation as to what to say, to whom, when to say it ... and how to respond.

I looked online for a definition of grüezi and came across a photo on flickr.com of a Washington state vanity license plate that read: GRUETZI.

I began to hear it more and see it used in lots of Swiss advertising. It's now part of my vocabulary! 

The only challenge NOW is that I've mastered it so well, that store clerks now continue their conversation with me in Swiss-German. Which again leaves me with more blank stares and slight nods. :) 
P.S. Yes, I know I've used two different spellings for the word Grüezi. Just as in English, it seems to be spelled different ways by different people. :)

The Sprengers from Switzerland!!

In my 3rd blog entry (December 1st – The Ghost Walk of Zurich) I mentioned having drinks at the Aelpli Bar with our new Swiss friends from Meilen. They are Paul and Iris Sprenger, a wonderful couple who have ‘taken us under their wing’.

Doug always chuckles when I say I’m the shy one of the two of us. But I am! I’m an extremely shy extravert. I like meeting new people and exploring new venues. I was the one who found and suggested the Ghost Walk. We were the first to arrive that evening, but were soon joined by another couple who appeared to be about our age or slightly older. The tour was being given in English, so I knew they spoke or at least understood English … even American English (vs. British English).

So, while people were arriving, I introduced myself to the woman. “My name is Luci,” I said. She responded, “I’m Iris.” The tour began, and as we walked from location to location, she and I chatted about random things: where are you from, why are you taking this tour, isn’t it cold, and so on--nothing in particular, just conversation. Iris introduced her husband Paul to me, and I introduced them both to Doug. We learned that they lived near Zurich, and they were taking the tour just for the fun of it. They lived just south of Zurich in Meilen, but were fond of “meandering” frequently, just as Doug and I do.

Sometime during the tour Iris said, “Give me your number, so we can get together.” YES, I thought: I had made a new friend! I mentioned it to Doug and when the tour ended they suggested we go for a drink. They knew the city and took us through the cobblestone street to an out-of-the-way pub called the Aelpli Bar, in central Zurich’s Niederdorf neighborhood.

As we walked through the old wooden door and up a few narrow steps, it was as if we slipped through a portal into old Zurich. The pub was small, cozy, comfortably lit, and packed with happy patrons. The music was not piped in, but was live and up close: three accordionists played as they sat on overturned crates, and the waitress wove her way among close-packed tables of customers who sang and foot-tapped along with the melody. We found a well worn wooden table and benches in the back of the pub, and Paul ordered us a bottle of wine.

The next hour or so was magical.

Paul shared with us that he had recently connected with relatives from America. In 1854 these relatives’ ancestor, John Jacob Sprenger, had immigrated to America – to my home state of Minnesota! John Jacob Sprenger’s descendents had done their research, connected with Paul and Iris, and exchanged family information. Just last year, Paul and Iris had traveled to Minnesota, California, Oregon, and Washington to visit with their new found relatives. So they knew Seattle, and had visited many of the places we had. We connected!

Before the night was over, we had exchanged not only phone numbers, but business cards and email addresses, and they had invited us to dinner at their home on the following Sunday evening. They walked back through old Zurich with us; then we said good night and boarded our respective trams. Not goodbye, but just good night, for this would be just the first of several adventures with our new Swiss friends.

Our Ghost Walk of Zurich

I grew up being taken on tours. When I was a child, my parents made the most of every opportunity to TAKE A TOUR. Be it a bicycle factory, the chocolate manufacturing town of Hershey in Pennsylvania, a steel mill, the Ford auto plant, or even a local scenic walk, if a tour was possible, we went on it. And I continued this tradition: in my first job out of college as a youth director at the Merriam Park Community Center in St. Paul, I started a summer program called “Twin Cities Tours for Kids”.

‘Taking tours’ is as ingrained in me as having pumpkin pie on my birthday!

So it was no surprise when Doug and I quickly found a walking tour that we could take here in Zurich. On Friday evening, November 28th, we caught the season’s very last GHOST WALK OF ZURICH!

With ten others, we began queuing up in the dark about 7:30pm, by the fountain in Paradeplatz, which is a tram stop near the oldest part of Zurich. Our tour guide, a British chap who hails from York in northern England, arrived wearing a dark wool overcoat and a bowler hat (also known as a derby, or billycock). He carried a black leather surgeon’s grip and flourished a skull-tipped cane, and we were soon to learn that he was both a gifted storyteller with a deep sense of the macabre and a humorist with a superb sense of timing. He took us on a ninety-minute walking tour of the ancient inner city’s dark alleyways, haunted corners, and church crypts.

These are just a few of the hair-raising stories he told us:

... The city’s headless patron saints Felix, Regula and Exuperantius, who attempted to convert its citizens to Christianity in the 3rd century AD. According to legend, the Roman governor of Zurich (which was called “Turicum” in those days) made them drink molten lead and plunged them into boiling oil. They survived and still refused to renounce their faith, so they were beheaded. That didn’t stop them: they picked up their heads, carried them to the top of a hill, and waited to be buried. The site of their graves is now Zurich's most famous landmark, the Grossmünster church.

... A 14th century city mayor, Rudolf Brun, is buried just below the clock tower. He died a terrible and mysterious death, which some attributed to poisoning. In the 1970s his remains were exhumed and examined, and they tested positive for arsenic. But as the substance was often used in earlier times for medicinal and recreational purposes, the result was inconclusive. His ghost has been seen to walk through walls.

... The folk tale of the ghost of a peasant girl who hanged herself from a beech tree on the Uetliberg hill after being betrayed by the cruel and lustful Duke of Manegg,

... The poltergeist who drove a young family, with their ten-year-old twin daughters, out of their home in the Shipfe quarter.

... The eerie sounds of nearly 70 drowned Christians who fell into the river during a medieval procession over an old wooden bridge, and whose shrieks can still be heard today.

We had a gripping adventure that Friday evening. Doug and I were the only Americans; the others were from England, Ireland, and Zurich itself.

We capped off the evening with drinks at the Aelpli Bar, in the oldest quarter of Zurich, with our new friends from Meilen in the canton of Zurich, who we met on the tour. But that scuttlebutt is for another blog … ☺

To learn more about the ghosts of Zurich … 

Check out this article that appeared in the SwissInfo.ch in 2006
Ghosts Haunt Zurich Streets

And view a clip of the tour on YouTube.com at

Ghost Walk of Zurich