Zurich Zoo

Whilst considering an excuse to go to the North side, we came up with a trip to the Zurich zoo.
A fantastic day out despite us being there on the same day as "National, how many childeren and pushcairs can you get in a zoo day". I can assure you the answer is lots and lots.
So, onwards to the animals, which I'm not very good at describing.

Clerk of works penguin

Nice habitat.....

...for crocodiles



Log with lizard on top



Python, all 12 foot of it



Leaves and sticks





Poison arrow frog:- Humbug coloured



Poinson arrow frog:- Don't eat me coloured

Poinson arrow frog:- Blue, quite literally

Poison arrow frog:- Black with yellow bits or yellow with black bits?

 

Zoo with a View

Injured bat feeding was the best bit of the day.

The indoor bit, 25 degrees and 100% humidity and a
fantastic natural habitit for all sorts of things running about wild, including pushchairs.

Tortoise

Lemurs running loose.
They have figured the quickest way to get about is via the structure

Flughund...Flying dog...Fruit bat

Camel, dromedary or bactrian

Elephants.
They get a massive new home in 2014 which will be great as they looked a little sad in their small pen

Snow leopard. No its not white.

Wolf.
Not that exciting considering they are running about in the hills round here.

Lion

Monkey of unknown model

Silverback gorilla

Rhino Saurus

1st MTB ride of 2011.

It was cold and wet

Chur

As Ticino was celebrating a bank holiday on Thursday 6th Jan and having to endure 2 "days of the dead" in a week (the other being Sunday) would be too much, so we got on a bus and went to Chur.

Chur is a village in the Turkmensky Distirct of Stravopol Krai, Russia. It has a population of 600.

There is also a Chur in canton Graubunden, Switzerland which is where we went. Chur has a population of 21000 and is at an altitide of 584m. Apparently skiing is popular in Chur but on the day we went, there was no snow and it was about 10 degrees.

Some impressions of the twee town of Chur



Frozen fountain.
It would be more appreciated in summer as Chur is the warmest town in Switzerland





Apparently this is the is the oldest detached house in Chur.
Not sure I understand the Swiss definition of "detached". 



We were very keen to see the cathedral.
This wasn't it....

Perfect symmetry...Almost.

Cathedral square

Font.... Well..... Or a place to put noisy children.



The Kuhn Organ was built in 2007 and looks excellent in this 900 year old building.
More info on the organ .....HERE



.......MORE TO FOLLOW LATER......

Zug

Last weekend we went to explore Zug, which is very pretty but has nowhere where you can get warm food after 2pm (except a grotty chinese restaurant in the train station, which did not appeal).

This is what we saw and liked:

A pretty wood-clad house

A lake with a view

A christmas-present tree !

 

And christmas geese.

Bellinzona Light Show

As we have probably mentioned before, there is always something going on in Bellinzona, and this weekend is no exception. But this time it's a bit more exciting than usually.  Bellinzona is celebrating its 10 year anniversary of becoming a UNESCO World Heritage Site (it was added to the list of WH Sites in Nov 2000), and as part of the celebrations, the 3 Castles, as well as some of the other historic buildings, have been illuminated with a very impressive light-show:

Castle Grande

 

Looking across from Castle Grande to Castle Montebello.

Looking down from the castle hill

 

La Collegiata



  

Town Hall

 

And inside the townhall, some seasonal decorations:





Labels

Language and marketing are somewhat different here, and so we frequently find labels on products, product names and other such things which are rather amusing to us...  Here are some examples

Switzerland is more extreme...

The summers are much hotter, the winters much colder, the mountains much higher and the germs much nastier.  Cough cough sneeze.  And back to sleep.