Our second full day in Zürich was spent actually exploring the central part of the city and all its stunning architecture. Our usual run into the city centre on the tram was how we started the day.It was a lovely walk as soon as we got out of the tram. Bahnhofstrasse was the main street as you get off at the tram station and there’s a variety of shops from your usual high street brands to the high ends ones such as Harvey Winston and Gucci. There were also restaurants, cute cafes and everything you could think off down that one Main Street. The hardest part was navigating the tram lines and crossing the road!The city was full of beautiful cobbled streets and cute little alleyways! It wasn’t long before we stumbled upon one of my favourite things. A church. As mentioned in previous blogs, I’m not religious by any stretch of the imagination, I just am in awe of such stunning architecture! Every church is different and beautiful in its own way. There were some fantastic Christmas windows too! Full of all things festive! It was very cold, with temperatures touching minus figures but it was such a beautiful city to walk around that we barely noticed.So what made us want to visit Zürich ? We were watching ‘Travel Man,’ staring Richard Ayoade which basically showed great places in Zurich to visit in a 48 hour time scale! The Fraumünster is one of the most recognised landmarks in Zürich with its green spire. It was beautiful. The houses were beautiful with their colourful facades, the square that housed the Fraumünster was stunning and the fountains just added to the whole scenery. It truly is a beautiful place. They Fraumünster was shut every time we stumbled upon it but still, there were even better things to see.Founded in 853 originally this stunning church is built on the remains of an abbey for aristocratic women. There are five amazing stained glass windows featured in the church; Prophets, Jacob, Christ, Zion and Law. The church attracts 500,000 visitors a year and you can only go in by appointment or guided tour from June 20th. Sadly this wasn’t the case for us.More Lindt Sprüngli shops and ridiculously expensive designer shops lined the road near Paradeplatz. I mean they’re the kind of shops that we wouldn’t even look in the windows of because they’re just outrageous. For us anyway…We had heard about a restaurant called Zueghauskellar, which has a huge variety of sausages, cooked a variety of ways and with different flavours. So we thought we try it…Set in an old armory, this restaurant was quirky to say the least. Really well priced for how full you get despite the meal basically being sausage and chips (or in my case rosti), it didn’t disappoint. Nathan indulged in the Zeughauskeller Wurstspiess, which was six different flavour sausages on a skewer with peppers and bacon what I went for “the original famous ‘Saucisson’ from the region of Neuchâtel,” which was a 250gram beef and pork sausage with bacon and a rosti on the side. It was delicious 😋 but so incredibly filling I could only eat half!! Needless to say, Nathan polished off the sausage!I couldn’t get enough of the blue sky, the towering spire of the Fraumünster, but we continued our journey through the city. It was a beautiful day!The road in-front of the Fraumünster that led down to Harry Winston and Paradeplatz had some stunning cars! We took a moment to take in everything we’d never be able to afford before crossing the bridge to another amazing architectural wonder.The view across the river was lovely. You could see St. Peter’s Church and the colourful buildings lining the waters edge. I swear I was walking round this city with my jaw on the floor because it was just stunning to look at.The next part of our adventure saw us heading up the spiral staircase of the Grossmünster. Construction started in the 1100s with it then being inaugurated in about 1220. It is one of the four main churches in Zürich and the view from the top was simply beautiful. The downside? The tight winding 187 steps that just go round and round and round and round. They felt like they were never going to end. Still, it was very much worth it.You could see for miles and miles and all the major landmarks of the city. There were four corners at the top to look out across the city and it was truly mesmerising. I fell in love. We’ve been lucky enough to see many amazing views but this is right up near the top. After getting down the winding staircase we headed towards the Sechseläutenplatz where they were beginning to put together the Christmas market. There were such beautiful colours on the trees and the ground as the workers were busy erecting the cabins for Christmas.There was even the grounds for an ice rink. Also in the Sechseläutenplatz is the Opera House which has been home to the Zürich Opera since 1891. There were lots of people stood outside taking photos so we got a couple from afar. We were gutted that we’d missed out on the Christmas festivities again as we had done in Lapland, but it was still such a stunning place to explore. We headed back along the river towards Lindenhof Hill for another beautiful view of the city. Cute colourful houses lines the streets and the park even had chess tables for people to use. It was a lovely place for a picnic.From Lindenhof hill, we then walked for miles, and I mean miles, to find a street lined with colourful umbrellas. We even found a Hooters on the way and passed through less picturesque parts of the city.We did stumble across an extremely quirky part of the city near a viaduct. It’s in the ‘up and coming’ part of the city and it was awesome. Frau Gerolds Garten situated on Geroldstrasse is a very quirky place to drop in and have a drink after work and you could see that many places along here were being used for that. As offices kicked out, the bar filled up with young professionals. There were shops within freight containers that also led up to another viewpoint. Considering how far we’d walked so far, we decided to leave this viewpoint and carry on.Then we found the umbrellas. You could literally blink and walk past them if you weren’t looking for them. Hanging over the Gerold Cuchi restaurant, there are over 50 different designs on the umbrellas in the Kreis 5 district. From here it was onto the viaduct.The arches of the viaduct have been turned into boutique shops and a couple of cafes with some being left open for us to walk through and head back towards to city centre.The sun was beginning to set and we passed more colourful houses and amazing graffiti on the sides of blocks of flats. Considering how long it took us to walk to the Kreis 5 district, we managed to get back to the national museum opposite the train station very quick. That meant more time for exploration.We found ourselves in the university district next as the sun had set almost fully. From the terrace you could see all the major viewpoints we had encountered in the day.It was stunning at night as the buildings were even more prominent against the dusky blue sky. We decided to go back to Sam’s Pizzaland for another delicious dinner.Being a Saturday night we had to wait about an hour to get seated but it was worth it. Then we strolled back around the city admiring the city lights before heading back for our last day of exploration.Until next time….