Switzerland - walk to Lake Zurich

As promised, here are some pictures from our afternoon stroll down to the lakeside and back. We passed some notable buildings - the older buildings in Zurich appear to be very robust.

Robust building

I think this chap was looking (in vain) for money

Not sure what this splendid splodge of human flesh was about

This one was made of glass

Sad, but couldn't get any closer though

Some park or other

And then we discovered (entirely by accident) Kirche Enge, or translated into the vernacular "narrow church". It was almost was wide as it was long, so clearly not narrow in that sense. But it had an organ. I may have mentioned that I like organs. This one appeared to be under renovation as there were large numbers of pipes stacked in in the balcony.

Kirche Enge

Organ pipes stacked in the balcony

A few up there too

The congregation

Cool windows (not 10)

The organ manifest

You will be aware that a decent organ is split into a number of divisions or organs of which the great, swell and pedal are the most well known. The pipes you see will belong to the great or pedal. Pipes in the swell are housed in a box with shutters that can be opened or closed to regulate the volume. And then there is the echo organ which is located distant from the console in order to give an echo effect.

From the inside the apex of the dome is a false interior window. The exterior dome towers far above this and is built to illuminate said window. The echo organ or Fernwerk (translates as "remote") is apparently located in this void as I discovered from the stock photo below. Which I figured was kind of cool. I would have liked to have heard the organ playing.

The dome from the outside

Stock photo of dome interior

Stock photo of fernwerk above the dome

Switzerland run #1

A spur-of-the-moment trip to Switzerland to visit Kate, arriving late Friday. Saturday was our Grand Day Out in the Lucerne area, amply covered by Kate's blog and my FB post. Kate had to study some of Sunday, and work some of Monday, so I took advantage and tried out barefoot running in Zürich.

Sunday run (anticlockwise) to the lake 7.6 miles

Showing the Sihl and Limmat rivers

My first run was to explore Lake Zurich aka Zürichsee. I was mistaken in thinking the river near Kate's apartment would take me there - in fact the Sihl manages to run roughly parallel to but separate from the lake for almost its whole length.

Towards the bottom left of my map my route turned abruptly to the right - this was because there was a cordon straight ahead and a man waving me in that direction, so I duly acquiesced and found myself with other runners and soon I could see the finishing line ahead and there were crowds either side cheering me on. I felt quite elated, until an official told me I shouldn't be there. Later I found it was the Gigathlon Switzerland 2017.

Having realised the lake was being allusive, I turned eastwards and eventually found myself beside it and sufficiently far from the city to afford some places to swim. The advantage of running barefoot is that one can simply swim without needing to change, or needing to dry afterwards. Running shorts dry pretty quickly.

I returned along the lake shore to where the main river flows out (the Limmat, which eventually discharges into the Rhine).

Now almost home I found this curious drinking fountain. I wasn't thirsty...