Zurich

Best Things To Do

Switzerland is famous for toys ranging from trains to wooden carved toys and the Zurich Toy Museum and Franz Carl Weber, the toy store, should be part of any visit to the city when you have children in tow.

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City guide section

Top picks in Zurich

Showing 1–20 of 20 places

Browse the highlights below, then open any place for maps, area notes, and practical details.

Kids in Tow

Grossmünster

Grossmünster, or 'Gross Monster' as it's lovingly referred to by English speakers, is Zurich's most important church and one of the city's most distinctive landmarks.

Fraumünster

Fraumünster, or Church of Our Lady, is one of Zurich's most important churches. The original church was opened in 850 and served as a Benedictine Abbey.

Swiss National Museum

The Swiss National Museum opened in 1898, seven years after its establishment. The building is in the style of a French Renaissance chateau, designed by architect Gustav Gull.

Bahnhofstrasse

Bahnhofstrasse is Zurich's main shopping street and also one of the world's most expensive streets. It dates back to 1864 when the surrounding swamp was filled in.

Kunsthaus

Kunsthaus is Zurich's best art museum. It opened in 1910 and was designed by architect Karl Moser in the Greek Revival style. The facade is a little drab, but it belies the excellent collection housed inside.

Schanzengraben

The Schanzengraben is a canal that connects Lake Zurich to the Limmat, through the western end of central Zurich.

Niederdorf and Oberdorf

Niederdorf and Oberdorf is the neighborhood located on the right bank of the Limmat River. The atmosphere here is more casual than the rest of central Zurich.

Rietburg Museum

The Rietburg Museum is located in the middle of a 17 acre park, Rieterpark, in central Zurich. The park was bought by the city of Zurich in the 1940s.

Aussersihl

Address: Langstrasse Zürich Tel: +41 44 215 4000

Le Corbusier Center

The Le Corbusier Center, home to the Heidi Weber Museum, was the final building designed by Le Corbusier, one of the seminal architects of the twentieth century.

Affoltern, Oerlikon & Seebach

This district is famous for its Christmas Collectors Fair that takes place every year.

Zurich Zoo

The Zurich Zoo, or Zurich Zoologischer Garten, is one of the finest in Europe. It opened in 1920 about 5km west of the city center. Today more than 2,000 animals of more than 300 species call this zoo home.

Winterthur

Founded during Roman times, it came under control of the Hapsburgs in 1264 and was sold to Zurich in 1467.

Villa Am Römerholz

Oskar Reinhart was an heir to Volkart Brothers, a Winterthur-based trading company focused on importing goods, specifically cotton, from India.

Schaffhausen

Schaffhausen is a small city 50km northeast of Zurich and the capital of the Canton of Schaffhausen. The first historical mention of the city came in 1045AD.

Rheinfall

Located approximately 50km north of Zurich in the town of Neuhausen am Rheinfall, the Rheinfall is the largest waterfall in Europe. It measures 150m in width and 23m in height.

Zurich Toy Museum

More than 1,200 antique toys are in the collection, dating from the eighteenth century through the start of the twentieth century.

Stein am Rhein

Stein-Am-Rhein is one of Switzerland's loveliest towns. It's located about 20km east of Schaffhausen, as its name would suggest along the Rhine River.

Zurichhorn

Zurichhorn is a public park along the western end of Lake Zurich (or the Zurichsee). It's located at the small delta where the Hornbach stream flows into the lake.