18 Things to Do in Zurich: Prices, Museums and Churches

The 18 things to do in Zurich below cover the Old Town, the lake, the Reformation churches, the major museums and the mountain, zoo and chocolate trips on the edge of the city. Two full days is enough for the core of it, and almost none of it needs a car.

Zurich is the largest city in Switzerland and the country’s banking centre. It sits at the north western tip of Lake Zurich at 408 m (1,339 ft) above sea level, with the Limmat running north out of the lake before curving west, hills on either side, and the small hill of Lindenhof as its historic centre. The municipality had 436,551 residents at the end of 2024, with about 1.45 million in the wider urban area.

All prices below were checked against the venues’ own ticket pages in September 2026 and are given in Swiss francs, which is what you will pay. Switzerland is outside the euro, so bring a card rather than euros.

The 18 things to do in Zurich

The list runs from the sights in the Old Town outwards to the day trips, which is also a sensible order to do them in.

1. Old Town (Altstadt) and Lindenhof. The medieval core on both banks of the Limmat, free to walk, and the origin of the city.
2. Lake Zurich. Swimming, boat trips and a lakefront promenade, all free to reach.
3. Grossmünster. The twin-towered Romanesque church of the Swiss Reformation, free to enter, with a climbable tower.
4. Fraumünster. Five Marc Chagall choir windows and a Giacometti window, CHF 5 to enter.
5. St. Peter. Zurich’s oldest parish church, with the largest church clock face in Europe.
6. Bahnhofstrasse. The 1.4 km shopping street from the main station to the lake.
7. Kunsthaus Zürich. The largest art museum in Switzerland, free on Wednesdays.
8. Swiss National Museum. Swiss cultural history in a neo-Gothic castle beside the main station.
9. Uetliberg. The 869 m hill above the city, reached by S-Bahn, and the widest view of Zurich there is.
10. Zurich Zoo. 27 hectares and more than 380 species, including the Masoala Rainforest hall.
11. Lindt Home of Chocolate. The chocolate museum in Kilchberg, with a 9 m chocolate fountain.
12. FIFA Museum. World Cup trophies and memorabilia at Zurich Enge.
13. Museum Rietberg. Switzerland’s only museum of non-European art, in a park by the lake.
14. Technorama. A hands-on science centre in Winterthur, 500 experiment stations, worth the train.
15. Limmatquai and the Rathaus. The riverside promenade and the Renaissance town hall built over the water.
16. Confiserie Sprüngli. The Paradeplatz café that has been making Luxemburgerli since the 19th century.
17. Zurich Opera House. Opera, ballet and orchestral concerts in a neo-Baroque house on Sechseläutenplatz.
18. Zurich Tram Museum. Fifteen historic trams in the 1893 Burgwies depot, and the cheapest museum on this list.

1. Old Town (Altstadt) and Lindenhof

Zurich’s Old Town is the medieval and Roman core of the city, spread along both banks of the Limmat, and walking it costs nothing. The Romans built here first, as Turicum, a customs post on the river.

Lindenhof is the small linden-shaded terrace on the west bank that sits on the site of the Roman fort and the later imperial palace, and it gives the finest free view over the river and the Old Town roofs. From there the lanes drop down to Rennweg and Augustinergasse on one side and cross the river to Niederdorf on the other.

Niederdorf, the pedestrian strip on the east bank, is where the bars, bookshops and souvenir shops are, and where the Old Town stays awake after the shops shut. Get here on tram 4 or 15 to Rudolf-Brun-Brücke, or walk 10 minutes south from Zürich Hauptbahnhof.

2. Lake Zurich

Lake Zurich is the glacial lake that runs south east from the city for about 40 km (24.9 mi), covering roughly 88 km² (34 sq mi), and reaching it costs nothing. The lakefront at Bürkliplatz, at the bottom of Bahnhofstrasse, is the natural starting point.

Swimming is the thing to do here in summer, and the city runs open-air lidos along both shores that Zurich residents use daily from May onwards. Scheduled boats leave Bürkliplatz for the lakeside towns, including Rapperswil at the far end, and a short round trip takes about 90 minutes.

The path along the shore is flat, continuous for kilometres in both directions, and shared by walkers and cyclists. On a clear day the Alps sit on the horizon at the far end of the water.

3. Grossmünster

The Grossmünster is the twin-towered Romanesque church on the east bank of the Limmat, and entry to the church itself is free. Construction of the present building began around 1100, and legend has Charlemagne founding a church here on the graves of Zurich’s patron saints, Felix and Regula.

Its real significance is the Reformation. Huldrych Zwingli preached here from 1519 and made this church the starting point of the Swiss Reformation, and Heinrich Bullinger continued it after him. Inside there is a Romanesque crypt, modern windows by Sigmar Polke and Augusto Giacometti, and a manuscript collection.

Climbing the Karlsturm, the south tower, costs CHF 5 (about €5, $6, £5) for adults and CHF 2 for under-16s and students, and the tower opens Friday to Sunday only, so plan around that. A combined Grossmünster and Fraumünster ticket costs CHF 8 (about €8, $10, £7) instead of CHF 10, and tickets are sold on site rather than online.

4. Fraumünster

The Fraumünster is the church on the west bank whose five choir windows were made by Marc Chagall in 1970, and admission costs CHF 5 (about €5, $6, £5). It was founded in 853 by Louis the German as an abbey for aristocratic women, and his daughter ran it.

The Chagall windows are the reason almost everybody comes, and they are worth the queue: five tall lancets in reds, blues and greens telling biblical scenes. The north transept holds an earlier window by Augusto Giacometti, and the crypt houses a small museum on the abbey.

Entry is free for under-16s and students, drops to CHF 4 each for groups of five or more, and includes the crypt museum and the free Altstadtkirchen Zürich audio app. Keep the ticket: it takes CHF 5 off admission to the Kunsthaus collection.

5. St. Peter

St. Peter is Zurich’s oldest parish church and carries the largest church clock face in Europe, 8.7 m (28.5 ft) across, which is the reason to walk past it. The church stands between Lindenhof and the river, a few minutes from the Fraumünster.

A church has stood on this spot since before 900, the tower is medieval, and the nave was rebuilt in 1705 and 1706, making this the only baroque church in Zurich. Five bells hang in the tower, cast in 1880, the largest of them weighing over six tonnes.

Entry is free and the church opens Monday to Friday from 9am to 6pm, Saturday to 3pm and Sunday to 4pm. The bell tower is not on general access: the parish opens it only for private guided tours arranged in advance, so treat St. Peter as a 15-minute stop unless you have booked one. Older Zurich guides confuse St. Peter with the Grossmünster and credit it with twin towers, a Charlemagne foundation and a climbable Karlsturm; all three of those belong to the Grossmünster across the river.

6. Bahnhofstrasse

Bahnhofstrasse is the 1.4 km (0.9 mi) shopping street running from Zürich Hauptbahnhof down to Bürkliplatz on the lake, and walking it costs nothing. It was laid out after the main station was built, on the line of the old city moat.

It is one of the most expensive retail streets in the world, and the stretch around Paradeplatz holds the watch and jewellery houses, the banks and the flagship stores. Trams run down the middle of it, so you can ride part of the way and walk the rest.

Non-resident shoppers can reclaim Swiss VAT on qualifying purchases when leaving the country, which is what “tax-free shopping” on the street signs means; it is a refund at the border, not a discount at the till. Window shopping and the walk to the lake cost nothing at all.

7. Kunsthaus Zürich

The Kunsthaus Zürich is the largest art museum in Switzerland, at Heimplatz 1, and admission to the collection is free for everyone on Wednesdays. The art society behind it dates from 1787, the main Moser building opened in 1910, and David Chipperfield’s extension across the square opened in 2021.

The collection covers about 4,000 paintings and sculptures, and its strengths are Alberto Giacometti, the largest group of Edvard Munch paintings outside Norway, and a deep run of Impressionists and moderns including Monet, Van Gogh, Picasso and Warhol.

Tickets are priced by whichever major exhibition is running and include the collection across both buildings. In September 2026 that meant CHF 31 (about €33, $39, £29) for the Vilhelm Hammershøi show and CHF 24 (about €25, $30, £22) for the Wolfgang Laib show, with reduced rates roughly a third lower. The collection audio guide is free with an online ticket and CHF 4 at the desk.

8. Swiss National Museum

The Swiss National Museum, or Landesmuseum, is the neo-Gothic castle beside Zürich Hauptbahnhof, and adult entry costs CHF 13 (about €14, $16, £12). Gustav Gull designed the turreted building, which opened in 1898, and a curved concrete wing was added in 2016.

The collection runs to more than 800,000 objects, and the permanent exhibitions cover Swiss archaeology, Swiss history from the Middle Ages onwards, and the applied-arts collection. The Simply Zurich exhibition, a quick introduction to the city itself, is free to everyone.

Concessions cost CHF 10, under-16s go free, and an annual pass covering all the Swiss National Museum sites is CHF 35. The building is 300 m from the main station, so it works as a first or last stop on a Zurich trip.

9. Uetliberg

Uetliberg is the 869 m (2,851 ft) hill on the western edge of Zurich, and the view from the top takes in the city, the lake and the Alps behind them. Reaching the trails costs nothing beyond the fare.

The S10 S-Bahn climbs from Zürich Hauptbahnhof to Uetliberg station in around 20 to 25 minutes, and the summit is a 10-minute walk up from there, past a restaurant and an observation tower. Check the S10 timetable before you go, because the line runs from a separate underground platform and is periodically affected by works.

The walk to do from the top is the Planetenweg, a ridge path to Felsenegg laid out as a scale model of the solar system, roughly 6 km (3.7 mi) and about two hours one way, with a cable car down at the far end. In winter the same trails become sledging runs.

10. Zurich Zoo

Zurich Zoo covers 27 hectares on the Zürichberg slope and keeps more than 380 animal species, which makes it one of the most species-rich zoos in Europe. Adult admission is CHF 32 (about €34, $40, £29).

The headline enclosures are the Masoala Rainforest, an 11,000 m² glasshouse holding around 40 vertebrate species from Madagascar, the Lewa Savanna at 5.6 hectares, the Kaeng Krachan Elephant Park and the Australian Outback section. The zoo builds habitats rather than cages, so allow half a day.

Children aged 6 to 12 pay CHF 18, 13 to 17-year-olds CHF 27, under-6s go free, and a family day pass for two adults with their own children is CHF 85. Tram 6 runs from the main station to the zoo gate.

11. Lindt Home of Chocolate

The Lindt Home of Chocolate is the chocolate museum at Kilchberg on the western shore of Lake Zurich, and the adult ticket costs CHF 17 (about €18, $21, £16). It opened in 2020 next to the Lindt & Sprüngli factory, in a Christ & Gantenbein building whose atrium holds a 9 m chocolate fountain.

The tour runs through the history of cocoa and Swiss chocolate over several themed rooms, ends in a tasting area, and takes about an hour. The shop is the largest Lindt shop in the world, and both the shop and the fountain are free to walk into without a ticket.

Children aged 8 to 15 pay CHF 10 and under-8s go free. Take the S8 or S24 train to Kilchberg, or bus 165, which stops at the door. Chocolate-making courses run separately and cost from CHF 32.

12. FIFA Museum

The FIFA Museum at Seestrasse 27 holds the world’s largest collection of World Cup memorabilia, and adult entry costs CHF 26 (about €27, $33, £24). It sits in the Haus zur Enge, opposite Zürich Enge station, three stops from the main station.

The exhibits run through every tournament, with match balls, shirts, trophies and film, plus interactive sections where you can try commentating or refereeing. There is a shop, a café and a sports bar, all of which you can use without a ticket.

The museum opens Tuesday to Sunday from 10am to 6pm and closes on Mondays, which catches people out. Trams 5, 6 and 13 stop within a minute’s walk.

13. Museum Rietberg

Museum Rietberg is the only museum in Switzerland devoted to art from Asia, Africa, the Americas and Oceania, and adult entry to the collection costs CHF 18 (about €19, $23, £17). It occupies historic villas in the Rieterpark above the western lakeshore, joined by an underground extension in green glass that opened in 2007.

The collection holds more than 21,000 objects, and the strong areas are Buddhist art from Tibet, Chinese painting and ceramics, Indian miniatures, and masks and sculpture from West Africa and Oceania. One of the villas, the Villa Wesendonck, was the home of Otto and Mathilde Wesendonck, the patrons who housed Richard Wagner on the estate while he was working on Tristan und Isolde.

Under-16s enter free, and the park, shop and café cost nothing. Tram 7 stops at Museum Rietberg.

14. Technorama

Technorama is the Swiss Science Center in Winterthur, about 25 minutes by train from Zurich, and adult admission is CHF 33 (about €35, $41, £30). It opened in 1982 as Switzerland’s first interactive science centre and now runs around 500 experiment stations across roughly 6,500 m².

Everything is hands-on. The sections cover mechanics, water, light and perception, magnetism and mathematics, and staff run live demonstrations through the day, including a high-voltage show that draws a crowd. Laboratory workshops in physics, chemistry and biology run alongside.

It opens daily from 10am to 5pm. Take a direct train from Zürich Hauptbahnhof to Oberwinterthur, then bus 5 to the door. There is no cinema on site, whatever some Zurich guides claim; the interactive stations are the whole point.

15. Limmatquai and the Rathaus

Limmatquai is the kilometre-long promenade along the east bank of the Limmat in the Old Town, and walking it is free. The quay was built in the 19th century, replacing the medieval houses that used to stand with their feet in the river.

The Rathaus, Zurich’s town hall, stands at the north end on arches built out over the water, finished in 1698 in a late Renaissance style. The cantonal parliament still sits in it. Along the quay are the old guild houses, including Zunfthaus zur Meisen and Haus zum Rüden, now restaurants and cafés, and the Wasserkirche stands on what was once an island in the river.

Boats on the Limmat stop along the quay, and the walk from the Rathaus to Bellevue takes about ten minutes.

16. Confiserie Sprüngli

Confiserie Sprüngli is the Zurich confectioner at Bahnhofstrasse 21 on Paradeplatz, founded in 1836, and its Luxemburgerli macarons are the thing to buy. Walking in and buying a bag of them costs a few francs.

David Sprüngli bought a small confectionery on Marktgasse in 1836 and began producing chocolate under the family name in 1845. In 1892 the chocolate manufacturing side split off and became what is now Lindt & Sprüngli, while the confectionery and cafés carried on as Confiserie Sprüngli, which is why the two names appear on very different products.

The Paradeplatz flagship has a café on the first floor, and there are branches at the main station and the airport. Luxemburgerli are made fresh daily and do not travel well, so eat them the same day.

17. Zurich Opera House

The Zurich Opera House on Sechseläutenplatz is the home of Zurich Opera, Ballett Zürich and the Philharmonia Zürich, and it stages over 300 performances a season. The neo-Baroque building was designed by Fellner & Helmer and opened in 1891, with about 1,100 seats.

Tickets range widely by seat and production, and there are student rates and same-day reductions, so a night at the opera in Zurich is not automatically expensive. Backstage tours run outside performance times.

Stadelhofen station and the Opernhaus tram stop are both a minute away. The restaurant and bars in the building open to ticket holders on performance nights.

18. Zurich Tram Museum

The Zurich Tram Museum occupies the 1893 tram depot at Burgwies, Forchstrasse 260, and adult admission is CHF 14 (about €15, $18, £13). More than fifteen historic trams built between 1897 and 1968 stand in 1,600 m² of the old depot hall.

You can climb aboard most of them, which is why this is one of the better rainy-afternoon options in Zurich with children. Reduced entry is CHF 9, children aged 6 to 16 pay CHF 7, and under-6s go free.

It opens Monday, Wednesday, Saturday and Sunday from 1pm to 6pm. Tram 11 stops directly outside at Burgwies. Older guides list the Museum Bellerive on Höschgasse as a Zurich museum; it closed permanently in February 2017, its applied-arts collection moved to the Museum für Gestaltung at the Toni-Areal, and the villa now houses ZAZ Bellerive, an architecture centre.

What are the best museums to visit in Zurich?

The best museums in Zurich are listed below, ranked by how much of the city they explain.

1. Swiss National Museum. The broadest single introduction to Switzerland, and its Simply Zurich room is free.
2. Kunsthaus Zürich. The country’s biggest art collection, free on Wednesdays.
3. Museum Rietberg. Non-European art, and the only collection of its kind in Switzerland.
4. Museum für Gestaltung. Swiss design and poster art, split between the Ausstellungsstrasse building and the Toni-Areal.
5. FIFA Museum. Football history, and the museum most likely to hold a teenager.
6. Zurich Tram Museum. Small, cheap and better than it sounds.

What are the best things to do in Zurich with kids?

The best things to do in Zurich with kids are Zurich Zoo, Technorama, the Lindt Home of Chocolate and the Tram Museum, in that order for most ages. All four are reachable on public transport and all four let children touch things.

Zurich Zoo works for every age, and the Masoala Rainforest hall is warm on a wet day. Technorama in Winterthur suits roughly ages six and up and easily fills a day. Lindt suits ages five and up and takes about an hour and a half with the shop. The Tram Museum is the cheapest and the shortest.

Add the lake in summer: the city lidos have shallow areas, and the boats count as an outing in themselves.

Note that the Swiss Children’s Museum, which some Zurich lists place in the Seefeld district, is in Baden, about 25 minutes away by train, not in Zurich.

What are the best activities for a business traveller in Zurich?

The best activities for a business traveller in Zurich fit into an evening or a two-hour gap, and the four below all do. Each sits within a few tram stops of the financial district.

1. Walk the Old Town. Lindenhof, St. Peter, Fraumünster and the Limmatquai make a loop of under an hour and cost nothing.
2. Take a lake boat from Bürkliplatz. A short round trip runs about 90 minutes and leaves from the bottom of Bahnhofstrasse.
3. Visit the Kunsthaus on a Wednesday. The collection is free that day and the museum sits ten minutes from Paradeplatz.
4. Book a Lindt chocolate course. Ninety minutes in Kilchberg, and a better client gift than the airport shop.

Where is Zurich?

Zurich is in north-central Switzerland, at the north western tip of Lake Zurich, about 30 km (18.6 mi) north of the first Alpine foothills. The Limmat flows out of the lake through the middle of the city, north at first and then west.

Hills close in on both sides: the Albis ridge and Uetliberg to the west, the Zürichberg to the east. The medieval city boundary is still traceable along the Schanzengraben canal, and the modern city spreads north east into the Glatt valley and north west down the Limmat valley.

What is the history of Zurich?

Zurich’s recorded history starts with the Romans, who founded Turicum as a customs post on the Limmat where the border between two provinces ran, though there is evidence of settlement on the lake shore thousands of years earlier. The city became a free imperial city in 1218 and joined the Swiss Confederacy in 1351.

The Reformation arrived in 1519, when Huldrych Zwingli began preaching at the Grossmünster, and Zurich became one of its centres. Industry and banking made the city rich from the mid-19th century onwards, helped by the railways, and Swiss neutrality made it a refuge during both world wars. The city has absorbed its neighbouring communes over the past century and a half.

What language is spoken in Zurich?

Swiss German is what people speak in Zurich, specifically the Zurich dialect, Züritüütsch. Standard German is the written and official language, used in government, schools, newspapers and business.

The practical point for visitors is that English is widely spoken in central Zurich, in shops, restaurants, hotels and on public transport. French and Italian are Swiss national languages but you will hear little of either here.

What time zone is Zurich in?

Zurich is on Central European Time, UTC+1 in winter. It moves to Central European Summer Time, UTC+2, from late March to late October.

That puts Zurich six hours ahead of New York in the northern summer and one hour ahead of London year-round.

How many people live in Zurich?

The city of Zurich had 436,551 residents at the end of 2024, which makes it the largest city in Switzerland. Around 1.45 million people live in the wider urban area and about 2.1 million in the metropolitan region.

By Swiss standards that is very large, and by European standards it is a mid-sized city, which is why the centre feels walkable despite the city’s economic weight.

What are the most interesting facts about Zurich?

The facts worth knowing before a trip to Zurich are listed below.

1. Currency. Switzerland uses the Swiss franc (CHF), not the euro. Notes come in 10, 20, 50, 100, 200 and 1,000 francs, and cards are accepted almost everywhere.
2. Language. Swiss German is spoken, Standard German is written, and English is widely understood in the centre.
3. Power plugs. Switzerland runs 230 volts on Type J sockets, which take three round pins in a triangle. Two-pin Europlugs fit; UK, US and Australian plugs need an adapter.
4. Time. UTC+1 in winter, UTC+2 from late March to late October.
5. Drinking water. Zurich has more than 1,200 public fountains and the water in almost all of them is drinkable, which is the cheapest thing about the city.
6. Dada. The Dada movement started in Zurich in 1916 at Cabaret Voltaire on Spiegelgasse, which is still there.

How many days do you need in Zurich?

Two to three days is enough for Zurich. Two days covers the Old Town, the four churches, the lake, Bahnhofstrasse and two museums, at a pace that leaves time to sit down.

A third day buys you either Uetliberg and the Planetenweg, or a day trip out of the city to Lucerne, Rigi or Rapperswil, all of which are inside 90 minutes by train. Anything less than two days and you will see the Old Town and nothing else.

Is Zurich worth visiting?

Zurich is worth visiting for two or three days, particularly if you are already flying through it. The combination on offer is a compact medieval centre, a swimmable lake, two genuinely major museums and a mountain view, all inside the same public transport zone.

What it is not is a cheap city or a party city, and it is smaller than its financial reputation suggests. If your trip to Switzerland is mostly about mountains, treat Zurich as two days at the start or end rather than the centre of it.

Is Zurich expensive to visit?

Zurich is expensive, and it is expensive even by Swiss standards. Switzerland is an expensive country because wages and costs are high across the board, and Zurich sits at the top of the Swiss range for hotels and restaurants.

There are real ways to bring the cost down. The Kunsthaus collection is free on Wednesdays, the Simply Zurich exhibition is free every day, the churches are free or CHF 5, the lake and its lidos are free or nearly so, and tap water from the street fountains is drinkable. The Zürich Card costs CHF 29 (about €30, $36, £27) for 24 hours or CHF 56 (about €59, $70, £52) for 72 hours and covers unlimited local transport plus free or reduced entry to most museums, which pays for itself on a two-museum day.

Is Zurich safe to visit?

Zurich is very safe to visit and consistently ranks among the safest large cities in Europe. Violent crime is rare and incidents involving visitors are rarer still.

Take normal city precautions rather than special ones: watch your bag at the main station and on crowded trams, and be aware that the area around Langstrasse is the nightlife district and gets rowdy late at weekends. Walking alone at night in the centre is ordinary behaviour here.

What is Zurich famous for?

Zurich is famous for banking, watches, chocolate and art. UBS is headquartered here and is one of the largest banks in the world, having absorbed its former rival Credit Suisse in 2023, so the two-big-banks description in older articles no longer holds.

The city is also known for its art. The Kunsthaus holds the largest collection in the country, the Dada movement was founded at Cabaret Voltaire in 1916, and the Zurich Film Festival runs each autumn. Its intellectual roll call is long: Albert Einstein studied and later taught at ETH Zurich, James Joyce wrote much of Ulysses here and is buried in the city, and Lenin spent part of his exile on Spiegelgasse.

Who are the most important people born in Zurich?

Two names stand out among people actually born in the city, and a third belongs to the canton. They are listed below.

1. Max Frisch (1911-1991). Novelist and playwright, born in Zurich on 15 May 1911 and died there on 4 April 1991. He wrote “Andorra”, “The Fire Raisers” and the novel “I’m Not Stiller”, and became one of the central German-language writers of the post-war period.
2. Alfred Escher (1819-1882). Born in Zurich, he drove the building of the Swiss railway network, founded the bank that became Credit Suisse and pushed through the Gotthard tunnel. His statue stands outside the main station.
3. Johanna Spyri (1827-1901). Author of “Heidi”, born at Hirzel in the canton of Zurich rather than in the city, and buried in Zurich.

Zurich’s other famous names, Einstein, Joyce, Lenin and Tristan Tzara among them, moved here rather than being born here. That is a fair summary of the city: it collects people.

What to eat in Zurich

The dishes to eat in Zurich are listed below, starting with the one the city invented. Several are foods to eat across Switzerland rather than Zurich specialities.

1. Zürcher Geschnetzeltes. Strips of veal in a cream and white wine sauce with mushrooms, served with rösti. This is Zurich’s own dish and every traditional restaurant has it.
2. Rösti. Grated potato fried into a flat cake, served as a side or topped with egg, cheese or bacon.
3. Cheese fondue. Melted cheese with bread on long forks, eaten in winter rather than in July, whatever the tourist restaurants say.
4. Raclette. Cheese melted and scraped over boiled potatoes with pickles and onions, again a cold-weather dish.
5. Älplermagronen. Macaroni baked with potato, cheese, cream and onions, usually served with apple sauce.
6. Luxemburgerli. Small, light macarons from Confiserie Sprüngli, and the Zurich souvenir that is actually worth carrying home.
7. Chocolate. Lindt, Sprüngli and Teuscher all sell in the city centre, and the factory shop at Kilchberg is the cheapest of the three.

What are the best places to eat in Zurich?

The restaurants below were all confirmed as trading in September 2026, which is not a given: Zurich’s dining scene turns over fast.

1. Haus Hiltl. The oldest vegetarian restaurant in the world, serving since 1898, on Sihlstrasse. A large buffet charged by weight, an à la carte menu, a bar and a shop. Good for a cheap-ish lunch by Zurich standards.
2. Kronenhalle. The formal old-Zurich restaurant on Rämistrasse, with Chagall, Matisse and Picasso originals on the walls and classic Swiss and Mediterranean cooking. Book for dinner.
3. Volkshaus. At Stauffacherstrasse 60, a 1920s dining room doing updated Swiss classics, with a separate bar and terrace that are cheaper and more casual.
4. Frau Gerolds Garten. In Zurich West under the railway viaduct, a garden of converted shipping containers with food stalls, bars and shops. Outdoors in summer, heated chalets in winter, and the least formal option here.
5. Swiss Chuchi. In the Hotel Adler on Rosengasse in the Old Town, and the straightforward place to eat fondue and rösti without a booking weeks ahead.

Maison Manesse, which appears on older Zurich lists, closed at the end of December 2024.

What are the best areas to stay in Zurich?

The best area to stay in Zurich is the Old Town if you want to walk to everything, and Enge or Seefeld if you want the lake. The five areas worth considering are listed below.

1. Altstadt (Old Town). Most central, most walkable, closest to the churches and Bahnhofstrasse. Also the noisiest on the Niederdorf side at weekends.
2. City centre around the main station. Handiest for trains and the airport, and a short walk to the Swiss National Museum and Bahnhofstrasse.
3. Seefeld. East of the lake, quieter, residential and green, a few tram stops from the centre, close to the Opera House.
4. Enge. West of the lake, near the FIFA Museum and Museum Rietberg, with lakeside parks and its own station.
5. Zurich West (Kreis 5). The former industrial district, now bars, galleries and Frau Gerolds Garten. Cheaper, less pretty, better nightlife.

What are the best places to stay in Zurich?

The four hotels below cover four budgets and were confirmed as trading in September 2026.

1. Baur au Lac. The five-star grand hotel in its own park at the bottom of Bahnhofstrasse, family-run since 1844, with lake and Alp views, two restaurants and a spa.
2. Neues Schloss Privat Hotel. A small luxury hotel on Stockerstrasse in Enge, restored, personal in scale and quieter than the grand hotels.
3. Hotel Adler. A three-star superior hotel at Rosengasse 10 in the Old Town, painted with Zurich scenes, with the Swiss Chuchi fondue restaurant downstairs. The practical mid-range choice.
4. Friendly Hostel. Dorms and private rooms five minutes from the Grossmünster, with a shared kitchen, a terrace and the cheapest central beds in the city.

Switzerland has no country-specific booking redirect on this site, so for apartments and longer stays, comparing what is available on Vrbo is usually the better route in Zurich, where hotel rates are high and self-catering saves money on top of the room.

How do you get from Zurich to Zurich Airport?

The train is the fastest way from Zurich to the airport, taking 10 to 13 minutes from Zürich Hauptbahnhof, with the station directly under the terminal. Trains run every few minutes from around 5am to midnight.

Tram 10 also runs to the airport from the city centre and takes about 35 minutes with all the stops, which suits you only if you are staying on its route. Taxis take 15 to 20 minutes without traffic and cost several times the train fare. Airport train and tram journeys are covered by the Zürich Card and by a Swiss Travel Pass.

How do you get from Zurich to Bern?

A direct train is the way to get from Zurich to Bern, taking about 56 minutes on the fastest Intercity services and up to about 90 minutes on slower ones. Swiss Federal Railways runs them at least twice an hour through the day, so there is no need to book a specific one.

Driving covers the 123 km (76.4 mi) in about an hour and twenty minutes on the A1. Coaches exist but take over two hours and save little. If you are combining Zurich with Bern or other Swiss cities, Omio compares train, coach and flight fares on the same route in one search, which is the quickest way to see whether a rail pass is worth it. There is more detail in our guide to getting around Switzerland.

Where do you go shopping in Zurich?

Zurich’s shopping splits between Bahnhofstrasse for luxury and Zurich West for everything else. The five areas are listed below.

1. Bahnhofstrasse. Watches, jewellery and international flagship stores, from the main station to the lake.
2. Niederdorf. The Old Town’s pedestrian strip, with bookshops, craft shops and souvenirs.
3. Zurich West. Im Viadukt, the row of shops built into the railway arches, plus the Freitag flagship in a stack of shipping containers, selling bags cut from used truck tarpaulins.
4. Seefeld. Design shops and small boutiques near the Opera House.
5. Glattzentrum. A large mall north of the city, on the way to the airport, for chain shopping in one place.

What festivals and events take place in Zurich?

Zurich’s calendar has three fixed points and one that has changed. They are listed below.

1. Sechseläuten (April). The spring guild festival, ending with the burning of the Böögg, a snowman effigy packed with fireworks, on Sechseläutenplatz. How fast its head explodes is said to predict the summer.
2. Zurich Pride (June). A parade and festival in mid-June centred on the Kasernenareal, with concerts, talks and exhibitions over a weekend.
3. Street Parade (August). One of the largest electronic music events in the world, on the second Saturday of August, with floats along the lakefront and hundreds of thousands of people.
4. Knabenschiessen (September). A traditional shooting competition for 13 to 17-year-olds, wrapped in Switzerland’s largest funfair, over a weekend in September.

Züri Fäscht, the huge city festival that used to run every three years, did not take place in 2026. The organising committee ended its partnership with the city, and Zurich has said it intends to replace it with a reworked festival, possibly in 2029, so do not plan a trip around it.

Planning the rest of your Swiss trip

Flying into Zurich is the usual way in, and the airport is one of the better-connected in Europe, so checking flight routes before you fix dates is worth ten minutes. Trains handle everything inside Switzerland well enough that most visitors never hire a car.

Hire one only if you are heading for the mountain valleys, where the trains are slower and the bus timetables thin, and DiscoverCars compares the desks at Zurich Airport in one place. For more of the country, read our guides to Swiss food and to the Swiss.

WonderfulWanderings Pro Tips

The 4 tips below come from re-taking every price and opening day on this page from the venues’ own pages in September 2026, which turned up one saving nobody advertises and three listings that have not been true for years.

1. Keep your church ticket for the Kunsthaus. A Fraumünster or Grossmünster ticket takes CHF 5 off Kunsthaus admission, which is worth doing on any day except Wednesday, when the collection is free to everyone anyway. Buy the combined Grossmünster and Fraumünster ticket at CHF 8 rather than the two separately at CHF 10, and remember the Karlsturm climb runs Friday to Sunday only.
2. Do not build a trip around Züri Fäscht. The festival did not take place in 2026, the organising committee has ended its partnership with the city, and the reworked version Zurich has talked about may not appear before 2029. Travel pages still list it as a three-yearly fixture.
3. The Museum Bellerive on Höschgasse has been closed since February 2017. Its applied-arts collection sits in the Museum für Gestaltung at the Toni-Areal now, and the villa itself houses ZAZ Bellerive, an architecture centre, so a design-museum day should start at the Toni-Areal.
4. St. Peter is a 15-minute stop, not the tower climb. The twin towers, the Charlemagne foundation story and the climbable Karlsturm all belong to the Grossmünster across the river, and plenty of guides attach them to St. Peter. What St. Peter has is Europe’s largest church clock face at 8.7 m (28.5 ft), free entry, and a bell tower opened only for private tours arranged in advance.

About the author. This guide is written and maintained by the Wonderful Wanderings editorial team. Wonderful Wanderings was founded in 2012 by Sofie Couwenbergh, and the team has been covering Switzerland for independent travellers since. We check Zurich’s museum prices, opening days and venue listings against the venues’ own pages rather than against other guides, and update this page when they change.