Switzerland · Canton of Zürich
Plan your Zurich trip
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01Your itinerary
02Where to stay
Niederdorf / Altstadt
Best for first-timers who want to walk everywhereThe medieval east-bank old town — narrow lanes, the Grossmünster on your doorstep, and the highest concentration of restaurants and bars in the city. Central, walkable, and noisy at night near the main strip.
A small boutique hotel on a quiet Niederdorf side lane
Pick a room off the main Niederdorfstrasse strip to keep the old-town location without the late-night bar noise underneath your window.
€€€A converted guesthouse near the Grossmünster
Waking up a two-minute walk from the twin towers and the river is the classic first-time-in-Zurich base.
€€€€Seefeld
Best for a calmer base near the lakeThe polished lakeside residential quarter east of the centre — leafy streets, the best-used lidos, and a long lakefront promenade. Quieter and more expensive than the old town, with an easy tram into the centre.
A design hotel a few streets back from the Seefeld lakefront
Far enough from the tourist core to feel residential, close enough to walk to a lido before breakfast.
€€€€Zürich West (Kreis 5)
Best for nightlife and a more contemporary baseThe former industrial district turned design-and-nightlife neighbourhood — converted factories, the Im Viadukt market arches, and the city's most talked-about clubs and restaurants. Grittier and younger than the lakeside.
A converted warehouse hotel near Im Viadukt
Puts the market halls, the Freitag Tower and the west side's bars within a short walk, with a tram ride into the old town.
€€€A mid-range chain hotel near Hardbrücke station
The neighbourhood's main transit hub, useful if you want fast tram and train links in several directions at once.
€€Kreis 4 / Langstrasse
Best for budget travellers and late nightsThe formerly rougher, still genuinely multicultural district around Langstrasse — the best-value food in the city, a later and looser nightlife scene, and noticeably cheaper rooms than the old town or the lake.
A no-frills hotel just off Langstrasse itself
Choose a room on a side street rather than directly on Langstrasse, which stays loud well past midnight on weekends.
€€Affiliate notePostcardRoute is reader-supported. Some links to Booking.com (stays, flights, car hire, tickets and tours, airport transfers) are affiliate links, tracked through CJ Affiliate: if you book through them we may earn a small commission at no extra cost to you. We only recommend places we would send a friend.
03Tickets & tours
Grossmünster
The twin-towered Romanesque church on the east bank where Huldrych Zwingli launched the Swiss Reformation in 1519, with modern stained glass by…
Tip Climb the south tower (Karlsturm) rather than skip it — the staircase is narrow and warm but the rooftop panorama over both riverbanks is worth the queue.
Fraumünster
A former abbey church whose plain Gothic interior is transformed by five stained-glass windows Marc Chagall designed in his late eighties, glowing…
Tip Photography is banned inside, so budget real time sitting with the windows rather than trying to capture them — the colour shifts noticeably as clouds pass.
Lindenhof
A quiet terraced hilltop park on the site of a Roman customs post and later a Carolingian royal palace, now mostly used by locals playing outdoor…
Tip Come at golden hour — it is one of the only central viewpoints in Zurich that costs nothing and rarely feels crowded even in summer.
Bahnhofstrasse and the underground vaults
The world's most expensive shopping street by retail rent, running dead straight from the main station to the lake — sit at street level, and…
Tip The shopping itself is mostly flagship luxury stores; the more interesting exercise is simply walking its full length to the lake at Bürkliplatz for the view rather than…
Lake Zurich lidos and river swimming
A network of public lake baths (Seebad Enge, Frauenbad, Männerbad and others) and a genuine local habit of swimming the Limmat itself in summer,…
Tip Frauenbad Stadthausquai is women-only by day and becomes a mixed bar in the evening — check the posted hours before you turn up expecting to swim.
Kunsthaus Zürich
Switzerland's largest art museum outside Bern, recently expanded with a David Chipperfield-designed wing, holding major Giacometti, Munch and Monet…
Tip The Chipperfield extension is free to enter and worth a look even if you skip the paid collection — check whether your visit falls on a free-entry evening, which the…
Cabaret Voltaire
The narrow Niederdorf storefront where a handful of artists founded the Dada movement in 1916 as a deliberate response to the First World War's…
Tip Check the evening events calendar; catching an actual Dada-inspired performance here is a stranger and better experience than the daytime museum visit alone.
Uetliberg
Zurich's own small mountain, reachable by a twenty-minute S-train ride (the S10) directly from Hauptbahnhof, with a summit ridge walk, a lookout…
Tip Ride the train up and walk the ridge trail down to Felsenegg, then take the cable car and bus back — a manageable half-day loop with the views concentrated on the…
Day trips from Zurich
Rhine Falls (Rheinfall)
Europe's largest waterfall by volume, about an hour north near Schaffhausen by direct train — a genuinely thunderous half-day trip, best combined…
Day tripLucerne
An hour southwest by train, with its own covered wooden bridge, a lake ringed by snow-capped peaks, and cable cars up Mount Pilatus or Rigi for an…
Day tripRapperswil
A 35-minute train or a scenic ZSG lake steamer to this small lakeside town, nicknamed the 'town of roses' for its rose gardens, with a hilltop castle…
Day tripEverything to do in Zurich
Skip-the-line tickets, guided tours and day trips, all in one place on Booking.com.
04Getting there & around
Getting around
Zurich airport sits roughly ten minutes by direct train from Hauptbahnhof, the main station, and that train alone is a reasonable introduction to how the whole city functions: frequent, clean, silent, and running to a printed schedule that assumes you will actually be there on time.
Flights
Compare fares into Zurich and pick dates that suit the days you planned.
Airport transfers
Book a private or shared ride from the airport so the first evening starts at your door, not at a ticket queue.
Car hire from Zurich
Only worth it for day trips beyond the city — in town, the plan above works on foot and public transport.
Affiliate notePostcardRoute is reader-supported. Some links to Booking.com (stays, flights, car hire, tickets and tours, airport transfers) are affiliate links, tracked through CJ Affiliate: if you book through them we may earn a small commission at no extra cost to you. We only recommend places we would send a friend.