Nine

Welcome back to another episode of A'lil Hoohaa's monthly photo blogging challenge. 

For PJ, our host, it has been nine years that he's been doing this. In celebration of this anniversary, our pictures today will represent the figure nine.

I've been on board since 2017, so I have contributed to Four, Five, Six, Seven and Eight. 

The March challenge is always a good opportunity for a trip into Zurich, which is Switzerland's  largest city. So what are we up to?

We're boarding tram number 9 that'll take us across town from the city's Triemli hospital to Wiedikon, the Jewish quarter via the city center to Lake Zurich's basin, "Bellevue", past the Kunsthaus (art museum) to the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (the Swiss equivalent of MIT Boston) and University of Zurich, with a stop at Rigiblick, to the venerable Grand Hotel Dolder, and last but not least to the northeastern outskirts of the city. 

Triemli: More than seven years ago hubby found himself at this hospital for eye surgery. Colin was only six years old, and what we tried to explain to him sounded super scary, and well, it is: Anaesthesia, surgery, Dad’s going to be away for a couple of days… 

All of his life Colin had been sitting next to me at the family table. Back then he moved his placemat to sit right next to Daddy because he was so relieved and happy to have him back. So I guess, a thank you is in order to the competent and caring people doing a great job. In the meantime renovations are done, and the 52 year old hospital looks all shiny and new.

Bellevue: transportation hub, harbor, opera house and lakeside boardwalk. Thousands of locals and tourists will stroll and enjoy the vibes. There’s always something to see or do. Like bubbles. 

Or boats. The Ferris wheel. Look, I caught gondola number 9!

Or just watch people. Oh so many people on a sunny day! I remember two years ago police had to “evacuate” the entire lakeside area due to the lockdown. It was bad to watch the news. People thought at the very least they were allowed to take a walk, but no. 

Kunsthaus: Zurich's art museum. Not much to see from the outside, except this guy. «Janus», by French/Algerian artist Kader Attia.

I'm not sure if I've ever been inside. I understand they own a soup can by Andy Warhol and the red square by Piet Mondrian, which I like. 

On to my next stop:

Rigiblick: This has been sort of on my bucket list. Not as in “wow, I absolutely want to ride this city ropeway” but I’ve definitely been wondering what this inconspicuos  little valley station right at the entrance to the university campus was all about. 

Rigiblick means ”view to Rigi”, and Rigi is an iconic mountain not too far from where Colin trains. So I guess on a day with good visibility you get to see the Rigi mountain, some 55km (35 miles) away. Well, I wasn’t that lucky on that particular day, but it was still cool to ride the tiny train.  The narrow-gauge funicular railroad is basically just one cabin, which overcomes a height difference of roughly 100 meters = 110 yards.

So instead of the alps, I saw the Prime Tower  If you’ve ever been to Western Europe you may have noticed that there aren’t many skyscrapers. There are some tall buildings in London, Frankfurt, and the Défense neighborhood outside of Paris, but otherwise everything is pretty built to fit in with the old buildings of the cities.

I don’t know what made developers build the Prime Tower in Zurich, Switzerland, but fact is, they did. It’s on a former industrial campus, and it looks kind of cool. It’s not that high. 126 meters (413 feet), and it has 36 floors. Still if you’re standing underneath it, it’s hard to get it on your picture. I spared no expense or effort and made a detour off the planned route to bring you this bonus close-up  image. 

They had a hard time renting the top floor to a solvent hospitality company to run a panorama restaurant, and since the first opening, there has been a change in tenant. I think that’s when the name changed from Cloud 9 to just Clouds. Anyway. I didn’t go up in the middle of the day, but maybe some night?

I hope you enjoyed riding tram number 9 with me. Now please head over to our host's post, wish him happy anniversary and check out my fellow photo bloggers' contributions!

Preview: Starting April 1st, I'll be participating in another round of Blogging from A - Z. My overall theme is coffee, so if that's of any interest to you, come back tomorrow - and every day after that!