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greenbagjosh · 2 years

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4 July 1997 - Zürich after 20+ years - Züri Fäscht - Polybahn - Spätzle and Hürlimann for supper

Friday 4 July 1997

Hi everyone, Grüezi mitenand e buon giorno! Welcome to my second international journey which takes maybe two and a half days. I would go from München Hbf to Zürich HB without changing trains, on Saturday 5th July take a train in the morning from Zürich HB to Milano Centrale, and in the afternoon on Sunday the 6th July I would take the train from Milano Centrale to München Hbf, changing direction at Verona Porta Nuova, going through Trentino Alto-Adige / Südtirol past Brenner, Innsbruck, Kufstein, Rosenheim and exiting at München Ostbahnhof. I stayed at hostels, sharing bedrooms with strangers. I had my youth hostel membership card with me so I would not have to pay extra.

On Thursday 3rd July I made sure that I had all my train tickets with me, including the sections between Lindau Hbf and St. Margrethen SG, as well as Brenner to Kufstein. I know of the station Lochau-Hörbranz, just right across the border past the future station Lindau Reutin (in operation since December 2020), but the EuroCity train did not stop there, nor did it stop at Lustenau, the final S-Bahn stop along the Bregenz S-Bahn line S3, before crossing into Switzerland. It would make little to no difference anyway. I listened to the radio the night before, listening to "Lonely" by Nana, an ad for an upcoming Michael Jackson concert somewhere near Kieferngarten/Freimann, "A girl like you" by Edwyn Collins, "Sultans of swing" by Dire Straits, and in the morning when I woke up about 5:45 AM, I tuned in Bayern 3. There was a contest to win a ticket to the Michael Jackson concert for Sunday evening the 6th July 1997. The song that was garbled was "Billie Jean", and the contestant had to play about ten seconds of it on their own radio or tape player - I could not play along because I did not have a copy of "Thriller" with me, either tape or CD. Oh well.

It was Friday morning 4th of July. I was already awake by 6 AM. I took a shower, made some sandwiches and coffee in one bottle and soda mix in another, and then left for the St. Quirin Platz bus stop. I took the bus 99 to Silberhornstraße, the U Bahn to Hauptbahnhof and I was on the 8:05 AM train from München Hbf to Zürich HB. I made sure that I had marked 04 07 in my Eurail Pass, so that the conductor could see it and cancel it for the rest of the day. I was in second class, so I was towards the front part of the train past the dining car. The second class car was okay, not exactly spacious. The train did not stop at München-Pasing at all. It did not stop until Buchloe. Back in 1997, there was no electrification of any kind between Geltendorf and Lindau Hbf. I did not know this until the train passed Geltendorf and was wondering, where is the catenary? It has been a long time since a mast had been spotted. It turned out that the locomotives were DB-218 diesel. The train would stop in Buchloe, Memmingen and Lindau Hbf. Only Lindau Hbf had electrification that came from Lochau-Hörbranz in Austria, and Lindau Reutin as a passenger station had not been built yet. For that reason, the train had to not only change direction, but because of the non-electrified section between Lindau Hbf and Geltendorf, the train had to switch from a diesel locomotive to an electric locomotive in order to continue to Zürich HB. The weather was not particularly friendly, being a rainy day and temperatures in the mid 60s / about 17 to 19 C, yet it was fair enough for the train to make its stops on time in Germany.

After the train left Lindau Hbf, I turned on the radio and tried to listen to Bayern 3 and Radio Vorarlberg as well as the DRS (which has since become SRF). My analog radio had its difficulties receiving stations, as it was not the digitally tuned HS-JS 475 model that I would buy about a year later. I was able to pick up songs like "I don't want to be alone" by the Bee-Gees and "Down by the schoolyard" by Paul Simon. I even was able to hear "Lazy Sunday afternoon" by the Small Faces (prior to Rod Stewart joining) and "Ruby Tuesday" by Rod Stewart, originally by the Rolling Stones.

The train from Lindau Hbf to Zürich HB was using a SBB class 421 electric locomotive for the remainder of the journey. Between Lindau and Bregenz, border checks were already conducted. The first stop after Lindau was Bregenz Hbf. It was a six track through-station with an overpass, one to the park and Seebühne venue, the other way to the taxi stand and Möhrenbräu restaurant and pub. I stepped out for about a minute or so, and was able to take a photo before boarding the train before it left for St. Margrethen via Lustenau. I could clearly notice that the clouds to the north of Bregenz were gathering. The train made a southward and then a westward journey past Lustenau. It crossed a bridge over the Rhine. A minute later the train arrived in St. Margrethen. The train had to stop for about ten minutes to perform passport checks. Back then, neither Austria nor Switzerland were part of the Schengen Agreement, and passport checks until mid-spring 2009 were mandatory between the EU countries and Switzerland. EU membership had little to no bearing before or after.

The train continued between St. Margrethen, St. Gallen, Winterthur without a stop in the canton of Thurgau (connection to Frauenfeld TG were available at Winterthur and points in between), Zürich Airport which was the only underground long-distance rail station, and past Oerlikon, Zürich HB. The train arrived around 12:25 PM. I had been to Zürich HB as early as 1976 with both of my parents, so returning 21 years by myself seemed a bit daunting at first.

It should be noted, that in Swiss written German, that place names generally do not start with Ä, Ö or Ü. And they never contain the ß letter. Instead, place names start as Ae for Ä, Oe for Ö and Ue for Ü. Anywhere that in Germany or Austria that would contain an ß, would have instead “ss”. In July 1998 when I returned, I would visit Uetliberg, and again in August 1998 the day after the Street Parade before going back to München.

I needed to withdraw some money, maybe 100 CHF at the time. The ATM at Zürich HB was not working correctly, so I took my ATM card, bought a day pass for the Zürich tram system, at that time just 7.20 CHF and valid for 24 hours after purchase, then took the tram to Paradeplatz where there was an ATM. I successfully withdrew 100 CHF from my bank account. Then I needed to find a place to put my luggage. I thought I would remember the location of the youth hostel, and that it would be on Mutschellenstrasse towards the tram stop Morgental. Sadly I had forgotten that detail since I left the Youth Hostel guide at my home and back then I did not even have a cellphone, so using Google would have been out of the question. I did however find a hostel, and it was called the City Backpacker, located at the Schweizerhofgasse, upstairs on top of a Spaghetti Factory with a solid black German Shepherd logo. The reception was open and the shared room price was around 27 Francs per bed, quite a bargain considering that Zürich is an expensive city to visit and live in. The Youth Hostel in Morgental was asking a similar price. Breakfast was not included in the overnight price. At least here there was no "curfew", no lockout time in particular, but quiet time was 10 PM to 6 AM.

I took the tram from Helmhaus to Central, and rode the Polybahn up only, not down. The Polybahn accepts short trip tickets, and a VBZ day pass would definitely be accepted. At the top of the Polybahn, was the Eidgenössische Technische Hochschule, or Confederate Technical University of Zürich. I remember a year later returning to make a selfie with a different camera, not the Konica that I had at the time.

I walked to the Universitätsspital Zürich tram stop and took a tram to Seilbahn Rigiblick. I did not know at the time that there was a secret U Bahn in Zürich, with only lines 7 and 9 between Milchbuck to Schwamendinger Platz, and I was not interested in that at the time, in fact, I did not visit it until September 2000, probably two visits hence. I boarded the cable car and found that there was no driver. Instead there was a set of buttons, up to the top station Rigiblick with a bus connection. I picked the top station. At Rigiblick, I boarded the bus line 39. At the time this line was operated with a Renault Trafic minivan, with manual transmission. The driver announced all the stops from Rigiblick to Klösterli. I stayed on the bus until I arrived at Klösterli next to the zoo. We had passed the Zoo tram stop, so I could have returned by tram lines 5 or 6, but I chose to explore Klösterli before taking the bus back. I looked at the menu for the Klösterli restaurant but found the prices to be too high for my liking. I took the bus back to Rigiblick and then the cable car back to the bottom.

One bit of trivia for the Fluntern - Zoo district, author James Joyce was buried in the Fluntern cemetery. He had lived in Zürich for a while, despite having also lived in Dublin where “Ulysses” had taken place.

I took a tram from Seilbahn Rigiblick Talstation through Unterstrass and on to Oerlikon. I decided to take an S-Bahn to Stettbach, hoping to exit there. However I boarded a S-5 train to Uster, outside of Zürich. The train stopped at Hardbrücke, went underground to the tracks 21 to 24, and since the Löwenstrasse station had opened in the 2010s, it is now called tracks 41 to 44, then on to an open cut at Stadelhofen, and did not stop until Uster. The train went right through Stettbach. I had heard about Stettbach S Bahn station through the Zürich Marco Polo guide, which I should have bought but felt a bit too frugal to buy it until Summer 1998 when I returned. I walked around the Uster S Bahn station and boarded the next train to Zürich. My Eurail pass would have been valid for the entire S-Bahn network in second class, as far as Schaffhausen if I were so bold to want to go there that day.

When I returned to Zürich, I exited at Stadelhofen. Between Bellevueplatz, the Opernhaus and Bürkliplatz, there was the Züri Fäscht going on. The majority of the music played there, was New Orleans jazz and some rapping. I remember even going to one stage where there was a singer singing his own version of "Amazing Grace" which included a rap. I had recorded his singing and it was pretty good. For food, some places were selling Cajun cuisine, even jambalaya. Since I did not go to Switzerland to have Cajun food, I had to take a pass on it, sadly.

I had walked along the Bahnhofstrasse, hoping to find the Neue Schweizerische Börse, which at the time I did not know, was actually at the southwest end of the Selnau rail station. I did not find anything at the time, that I wanted to particularly buy, nor did I find anything to eat just yet. So I went back to the hostel to rest up a bit.

About 9 PM I left the hostel and took a line 32 trolleybus to Farbhof. I wanted to just ride along, to see if there was anywhere to eat for cheap. I was a bit disappointed. So I went back to Central and the Niederdorferstrasse. I found one place called the Brasserie Johanniter which was still serving warm meals. At the time, it was serving Spätzle with ham, cheese and onions. I ordered a half liter of Hürlimann lager to go with that. It did not cost too much, maybe under 30 CHF. I used my debit card to pay. I turned on my radio and recorded something from Radio Z or some similar FM station. Some songs I recorded included "Samba de Janeiro", "Firestarter" and "Insomnia". Those were songs that in 1997 were in the top charts.

I walked back to the Spaghetti Factory and went upstairs to my room. I think four others were in the same room. I went to sleep and made a note to wake up by 6:30 AM to leave the next morning for Milan.

I hope you will join me for tomorrow's adventure crossing the Alps through the Gotthard Pass between Göschenen and Airolo, and going up the Ceneri grade. Even with the bad weather, it should be an enjoyable journey all the same.

bis morgen, a domani!

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