On Wednesday morning, I knew I had to get out of the apartment so it could be cleaned. I was getting tired of going to the lake, so I decided to seek out a different venue. The proprietors at the Apart-Hotel Hugenschmidt had mentioned that the University of Zürich’s botanical gardens are very close to their facility. I looked it up online and found that the gardens were about a ten minute walk from the apartment. A bonus was that I could also visit Patumbah Park, which is just across the street from the side entrance to the gardens.

After breakfast, Bill and I said goodbye. He headed off to his class, and I got dressed and walked to the gardens, which was a brief, pleasant walk through a residential neighborhood and past what appeared to be a (very nice) elementary school. Then I found Patumbah Park, which was not very big, but did offer lots of shade and a beautiful villa to admire as I walked past the grounds.

I didn’t spend a lot of time in the park, which offered lots of shady trees and benches for sitting and contemplating life. Maybe I should have taken a few minutes to enjoy Patumbah Park, which dates from the end of the 19th century. From the city’s official Web site:

The builder, Karl Fürchtegott Grob (1830–1893), had become enormously wealthy as a tobacco plantation owner on Sumatra. He gave his villa the evocative name “Patumbah,” an old term that describes a place where one feels at home—roughly meaning “room for everything” or “open house.”

I was focused on seeing flora, though, so I passed through the park quickly, and soon found a gate that led to the gardens. There were two office chairs near the open gate, but no cashier’s booth. The gardens are free of charge to visit and fully open to the public. I noticed some people walking through who seemed to be treating like any open space. It could have been a shortcut home for them, for all I know.

It was hot and sunny in Zürich last Wednesday, but lots of people were at the gardens, including a group of small Swiss kids. One thing I noticed when we were visiting Zürich is that a lot of very young children wear little bright orange or yellow safety vests. I saw several groups of little kids wearing them and sometimes holding handles attached to a rope to keep them all together in a group. I also noticed that every group of little kids I saw was tended by at least two adults.

I looked up the safety vests and learned that in some parts of Switzerland, small children are apparently required or maybe just encouraged to wear the vests. They seemed okay with wearing the vests. I think I would have hated that, when I was a child. But then, I hated wearing seatbelts for many years. 😉 Swiss children are notoriously independent in many ways. Even when they’re very small, they are encouraged to walk to school by themselves or in groups. It’s the same in Germany and, in fact, it was that way for me in the United States when I was living close enough to a school to walk.

Anyway, I don’t have much to say about the gardens, other than that they were very beautiful and well tended, and I especially enjoyed going into the “domes”, which are artificially created habitats for different plants… Below are some photos:

There was also an interesting exhibit about traditional herbal medicine methods used in medicine in Uganda. It was presented in German and English. I enjoyed it because it spoke to my time as a Peace Corps Volunteer, and as a public health student.

I got so many photos… and here are some more for my plant loving readers…

There were a lot of young folks at the gardens. They were a little annoying in the “domes”, because they were noisy and all over the place. But, I just remembered that I was young once, too, and I have surely had many obnoxious, annoying moments in my life, both as a child and an adult. So I kept that in mind as they were yelling, running, and engaging in horseplay. I resisted the urge to tell them to stay off my lawn.

I got back to the apartment a couple of hours later, and it was clean. It was so hot outside, though, and I realized that we needed more beer and orange juice. I decided that was a good opportunity to check out the bigger COOP market in the opposite direction of the smaller one. So I walked there armed with a paper bag. The store was, indeed, much bigger and nicer than the neighborhood market was, but it was just as hectic and frustrating to navigate. I managed to get what I needed and carried it back to the apartment.

On that trip, I noticed that the COOP had some nice looking sushi on display. I later suggested to Bill that we either go buy some or order some for dinner, since the weather was so warm and neither of us felt like going out and sitting in a hot restaurant. So we had sushi and dumplings on Wednesday night, and it was just what we needed, although it took awhile to get to us.

I later found out that there was a big event at Lake Zürich on the one day I didn’t hang out there. Thousands of swimmers crossed the lake from Mythenquai to Tiefenbrunnen. After the event, which has happened most years (except during the pandemic) since 1985, the swimmers were served hot bouillon and risotto for lunch. Apparently, that is a tradition, even though it was very hot outside, and the water was also pretty warm. It’s probably just as well that I wasn’t there for that event, since tickets were required. I’m sure it made the area very crowded.

Anyway, that about wraps up Wednesday of our trip. I would definitely recommend visiting the botanical gardens. There is also an “old” botanical gardens in downtown Zürich that is reportedly well worth visiting.

Stay tuned for the next post!