Just enjoying the summer...

It's almost one month since we last traveled out of Switzerland (in fact, Zurich), so it's probably time to give another sign of life about us... well, we are definitely not getting too bored at home. This year the summer started unusually hot, so we're just enjoying the great weather these days with a lot of barbecue at the Limmat:

From Hiking_Cycling_Fun

... or at our place:

From Various Zurich (Home)

... and waiting, with more or less patience ...  for many exciting things to happen: our parents to visit us soon; birthday-celebration and of course our three-week-backpacking tour in Asia this autumn.

Sechseläuten, the Spring Festival in Zurich

Each April, Zürich celebrates the Sechseläuten, which is a traditional spring festival (as good as we can translate the Sechseläuten word, it means something like "The six o'clock ringing of the bells" ;-)) It is such an important event, that the Monday afternoon is considered to be bank holiday in Zurich (too bad, neither of us is working in Zürich canton... but this year, for the first time, we decided to check out 'the actions')

The celebrations start on Sunday with a colourful children's procession, which is then followed by the main festival on Monday, when people in traditional costumes and marching bands, together with carriages and coaches, parade through the city centre to the Sechseläuten-Platz at Lake Zürich. Thousands of people gather here to watch the "burning of the Winter" by setting fire to the Böögg, basically a snowman whose head is filled with explosives:

From 2010 - Sechseläuten

It is said, the quicker his head catches fire and explodes, the finer the summer should be... well, the Böögg predics us a gorgeous summer in 2010 as his head barely resisted for 12 minutes and 54 secs:

From 2010 - Sechseläuten

Note for all our friends: this is now the right time, get prepared for visiting us!!! (pre-booking and early room reservation may be required due to the potential heavy traffic :-)) Shall  there be rainy weather during your visit, well, then you're just not lucky enough... but do NOT blame the Böögg, he has a few-hundred years of experience with this!

Some more pics on the Sechseläuten festival here.

Art on Ice 2010

It's time to talk about arts... typically not our favorite topic, but THIS type of art is one of the most amazing and enjoyable ones. For those who don't know: Art on Ice - it's an ice figure skating show with the most successful and best skaters from all over the world. They dance on the ice to the sound of live music from huge stars. The tickets were my Christmas present from Zoli (for last Saturday's performance in Hallenstadion Zurich) and I was very excited about this show. This years's performance was not a just one of the typical Art on Ice shows, but the 15th Anniversary Gala.

On the stage: Seven (one of Switzerland’s most sought after music stars these days), followed by David Garrett violinist and pop-soul queen Anastacia, guest stars of this year's Art on Ice show. On the ice, Olympic gold medalist 2006 and superstar Jewgeni Plushenko appeard alongside his longtime “rival”, the Swiss favorite - Stéphane Lambiel. Two of the best figure skaters of all time and world famous musicians... wow...it was absoutely wonderful to watch!

Other outstanding performers were:

• Sasha Cohen, silver medalist at the Turin 2006 Olympics,
• Kurt Browning, four-time world champion,
• two-time pair skating world champions Aljona Savchenko & Robin Szolkowy,
• two-time European silver medalist Sarah Meier or
• Isabelle Delobel & Olivier Schoenfelder, the ice dancing world gold medalists in 2008.

From 2010 - Art on Ice

For the first time, 2010's performance also featured motorbike stars, the Kourbanovs from Russia, which was nothing we've seen before. We don't even attempt to describe it, it was such an unusual type of 'art'.

Just like we don't attempt to raise anyone's interest with the few (and not-too-good-quality pictures and videos we managed to take) as this is truly a "must see with your own eyes" experience, a combination of art, sport and show with pretty impressive sound and light effects. The concept of creating an interplay between figure skating and live music, with world-class athletes performing on the ice and top music stars on the stage, is absolutely amazing...

Cycling along the Limmat: from Zurich to Baden

Yesterday we tried out the bike trail from Zurich to Baden - a very pleasant, about 30-km-ride along the Limmat:

From Hiking_Cycling_Fun

(at least it was supposed to be a nice, easy ride if we would have followed the cycling trails instead of choosing the narrow hiking trails uphill in the forest nearby the river valley... ;-)

From Hiking_Cycling_Fun

When we reached Baden, we found that the entire Altstadt was full of huge hearts everywhere, painted in bright colors as part of the recently launched "Baden zeigt Herz" (Baden has Heart) campaign:

From Hiking_Cycling_Fun

You can see some more photos of our trip and a small collection of the painted hearts in Baden here.

1st of May in Zurich

Zsolt (Zoli’s brother), Andi, Lilla & Hazse visited us from Budapest on the long weekend of 1st of May. After a nice walk in the old town of and a boat trip on the Zurich lake, we enjoyed together the sunny spring weather and this view from Uetliberg:

Look-out from Uetliberg

We enjoyed the nice sunny weather last Sunday at Uetliberg, together with Zoli's dad, who visited us for a dew days. The view on the city and Zurich-lake was absolutely gorgeous, this is really a must see when you're traveling to Zurich - especially if the weather is so nice like here:


We took a few of more pictures, which you are welcome to view here: Uetliberg

Tutankhamun - His tomb and its treasures

Last weekend we visited the Tutankhamun Exhibition in Zurich: http://www.tut-ausstellung.com/home-englisch.html

The centrepiece of the exhibition are the accurate, full-size reproductions of the child king TUTANKHAMUN's burial chambers exactly as they were discovered. Visitors to the tomb can see the burial chambers just as they were when Howard Carter uncovered them in 1922.
The exhibition contains dozens of replica funerary objects painstakingly recreated by Egyptian craftsmen, as well as a reconstruction of the opened treasure chests, which remain closed in the tomb itself.

2008 - Tutankhamun Kiallitas

Giardina garden fair

Yesterday we visited a great garden fair in the Messezentrum Zurich.
We had a lot of fun dreaming about furnishing our garden (that we'll have around our vila at our reserved land here)

All pics: http://picasaweb.google.com/emese.gyenge/2008GiardinaGartenmesse

Trip to Uetliberg

Yesterday we decided to discover the Uetliberg-region (one of the highest hills around Zurich, with plenty of hiking trails). We chose a short, but quite steep trail to climb up to the top, where we enjoyed the wonderful view on the city and the Zurich lake.

Mom's birthday and Zuri Fascht

This week we had the chance to celebrate my (Zoli) Mom's birthday with a first fireworks of the Zurich fascht then a nice day with barbecueing by the Zurich lake and by enjoying the second day's fireworks.

Zurich Zoo

Zurich by Christmas-time

We've been living in Zurich for more then 2 months now, but yesterday was the first day we've spent by exploring the city. Since my dad and my brother came to visit us, we took a beautiful boat trip on the Zurich Lake and walked around in the old town, climbing up also to the top of the Cathedral.

In the evening, we returned to the center to admire the modern Christmas-lights of the Bahnhof-strasse and to strall around the Christmas-markt at the main station, ending our tour with a glass of hot wine and a nice fondue dinner at home.

More photos coming soon ...