"Switzerland 2001: Zürich" a Zürich Travel Page by Tolik

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Zürich is Switzerland's largest city and among the most beautiful in all of Europe.

Zürich is a wonderful city, sitting astride the Limmat River where it emerges from the Zürichsee (Zürich lake). Its charming Altstadt (Old Town) is full of beautifully restored historic buildings and narrow, hilly alleys. In the distance, snowy mountains overlook the waters of the lake, and the shores are dominated by the 1900s mansions.

The earliest known Zürichers lived around 4500 BC in small houses perched on stilts by the likeside. In the 1st century BC the Romans built a customs house on the hill overlooking the Limmat River. In the time the customs house became a fortress, the remains of which can be seen on the Lindenhof square. In the 5th century the Germanic Alemanni drove out the Romans. Four centuries later the Carolingians built an imperial palace on the Limmat and Louis the German founded an abbey here. By the 12th century Zürich became a center of commerce and merchants established famous guilds. However, the city is far from a cold-hearted business center. In the 1916 the avant-garde Dadaist movement started here. Zürich also drew in famous Irish writer James Joyce, who wrote “Ulysses” and “A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man”. Now the city’s extraordinary museums and galleries, TV channels, and shops along the Bahnhofstrasse attest to its position as Switzerland’s cultural capital.