Boringness Research Mission

Zürich, Switzerland, 23-24th June 2012

I was quite intrigued several months ago coming across a list of the most boring cities in the world, as voted for by users of TripAdvisor or some other website. Living in the Geneva area, I'm pretty shocked that it's not on the list. In all fairness, before this weekend I'd only been to two cities listed - Brussels and Bratislava. I grew up in Brussels and don't find it at all boring. I visited Bratislava once 10 years ago and, granted, it wasn't the most exciting city I'd ever been to. But then again it's not a huge city either so you can't really expect it to be Paris or New York. The presence of Zürich in third place was interesting to me though. It had taken pride of place as the only Swiss city on the list. Could it be possible that somewhere more mind-numbing than Geneva could exist ?

"The financial hub of the country and the whole Europe, Zurich is home to corporations, banking giants as well as one of the world's biggest stock exchange, and it is often called the Singapore of Europe. Despite the fact that this Swiss metropolis has been cited as the city with the best quality of life and the wealthiest city in Europe, it is hardly a fascinating place to visit.  Put into apple-pie order, Zurich is simply too sterile and predictable."

So that was it. This little passage appears quite appropriate for Geneva quite well (aside from the presence of the stock exchange and the "Singapore of Europe" moniker) and, as M's parents were over and wanted to do a little exploring, I was determined to find out just how Zürich was. I had heard relatively little about it although nearly everything was related it being a) excessively clean or b) excessively boring or c) both. It is certainly wealthy - even the Swiss called Zürich "Zureich" - German for "too rich". Although any Swiss calling someone too rich could be considered somewhat hypocritical.

No garbage so far...

The Swiss inexperience with defacing things shines through here. What does this actually mean ?

It certainly started off clean. The car park we ended up in near the centre of town was probably cleaner than most hospitals in France. We walked along clean streets and up the lakeshore, admiring the clean water. The glasses from which we had a beer were clean and there wasn't even any clutter on the floor at a flea market we came across - something inconceivable in Brussels, for instance. People were friendly without being too energetic, as seems to be a constant in this country - the Swiss in general are not antipathic people but it's difficult to find anyone very exciteable here.

Downtown Zürich (vague description intended as I've forgotten what this building was)

There is a noticeable difference between Geneva and Zürich in terms of the old town - the latter's in far larger and has a large concentration of people walking around it, cafes and restaurants. It's an attractive one as well and big enough to get lost in. Very clean as well, of course, although that doesn't take away from its charm in any way.

Curiously for a city with a large lakefront, this appears to be Zürich's main beach

 Generic bridge picture #87623890p/4

 Generic bicycle/old town juxtaposition picture #482

So is Zürich a fascinating, exciting city-that-never-sleeps overall ? Not particularly. Is it the 3rd most boring city in the world ? Probably not. Is it less interesting than Geneva ? Certainly not.

Even the graffiti is classy in Zürich