As a man who totes a bunch of bikes around it’d be nice to hear of any experience with the place. We went there for a weekend last year and it was:
Freaking cold
Eye-wateringly expensive
A bit smug generally

Mrs Flamejob is about to get a job offer contract to move there. I’m more than happy here in Malaga, but it’s exactly the job she is after so we’d be stupid not to.

Bang on with the first three. Most risk the €200 fine to smuggle in food and wine from France.

I think the swiss are the most positive nation on earth and don’t blink an eye at 2000m climb just to see the view. Loads of energy.

Would love to live there but for the cost – hope Mrs Flamejob gets a proper package otherwise it can be a bit glum.

Downside – Humor, if found can be a little odd & its a bit rigid and you may find it claustrophobic after a while

I would say that Switzerland is a great location inhabited by the most horrible people in Europe.

my sister lives there.Prefers it to Basle. Think the above comments re Swiss apply all over. They are immensely proud of their country and seem somewhat insular. Sister lived in Liestal also and simply couldnt fit in despite speaking the language(well Grrman and not swiss-German)

(ideal for cycling visits though) 🙂

Well, we got ‘the package’ and it is pretty darn good. I dread to think what actual rich people earn there.

Sounds like you guys confirmed my feelings; next problem is to get some kind of apartment that will house my bikes!

I have also found a site with some pretty sweet looking trails just outside town.

http://www.swissalpineadventure.com/mountain-biking/zurich

I live in the French speaking part of Switzerland and find the people pretty much like in the Uk, you get the good and the bad ones. I have found the Swiss Germans to be a bit dull and anal but very trustworthy.
You will be close to some amazing biking 😀

Switzerland is inhabited by the most horrible people in Europe

Such an untrue statement, it’s laughable. You clearly haven’t actually lived here AND properly integrated have you?

Yes, they can be a bit insular (something that even the younger and/or more leftist people seem suffer from and haven’t quite shaken off)

Yes, some of them are a bit “proud” of their country (but if you knew a lot of Swiss people well, you’d also know that many are ashamed of some aspects, e.g. the lack of openness)

Yes, there are some “smug” people (but there’s smug people everywhere! As Cupidstunt says, there are good and bad people wherever you go.)

I’ve lived in Switzerland (Bern and Basel) for getting on for 10 years and have worked in two Swiss companies, working with Swiss people and speaking their language. When you cut through all the preconceptions and actually get to know them… well you couldn’t actually wish for a warmer set of people, so considerate to those around them and their environment. In my experience.

Probably the most qualified guy on this forum to talk about Zürich is Dave O’Riordan. He’s lived in or close to Zürich for an age and runs the Swiss Alpine Adventure website mentioned above. Basically, he’s full of good advice and trail knowledge for most of German-speaking Switzerland and part of a large group of Zürich-based (both Swiss and Anglophone) riders and skiiers who get out and enjoy the mountains on a regular basis. A good guy to know and I’m sure he’ll be along in a bit 🙂

Regarding how expensive it is…

The main reason that Switzerland is “eye-wateringly” expensive in the eyes of Brits, is that the £ is currently so weak compared with the CHF.

YES, there’s some stuff in Switzerland which is expensive whichever way you look at it, but people here (especially those on an expat package like Flamejob’s missus looks to be getting) are paid a salary accordingly…unlike me, I’m just a poor cycle messenger 🙂

Regarding food-smuggling. You’re allowed to bring in as much as you want if you’re prepared to pay the VAT on it. Around border towns like Basel, shops on the French/German sides have systems set up to rebate you the EU VAT before you go back into Switzerland, so you’re officially exporting/importing. With EU VAT at getting on for 20% and Swiss VAT at 7.6%, you end up getting quite a good deal (p.s. below certain quantities, you don’t have to pay the Swiss VAT).

look here for infos on trails and maps in switzerland:

http://www.traildevils.ch/trails.php

“I have found the Swiss Germans to be a bit dull and anal but very trustworthy.”

don’t know about that but i might be a bit biased …

Zurich sound a lot like STW you should fit in quite well then 😉

I live in French speaking Switzerland too and I personally love the country and the people – terrible drivers though… 🙂

I’ve only been to Zurich once or twice so can’t comment but I think this graph shows the difference in attitudes between the two “halves”…
Vote against gun ownership

You’ll probably find this site useful, if only to find out where to find/avoid the ex-pat hangouts…
English Forum

If the lack of Zurichois humour is true and becomes a problem then this might help:
Funny Laundry – English comedy in Switzerland

Thanks chaps, it’s always more comforting hearing stuff from people with experience. I actually work for a small London based company that pays me in pounds, so I’ll be the poorper.
As far as Brits go, I tend to shudder when the term ‘ex-pat’ is used and steer as far away as possible.

i lived in Zurich from 2002 to 2007 (now in Norway). Best city in the world and a brilliant place to live. The cost is not so high to be honest when you consider the low tax on salaries. There is some excellent riding on the ridges surrounding Zurich. Uetliberg in particular is great (go to youtube, there used to be a good vid of a group riding down the main downhill trails). I would happily move back there if it werent for the Norwegian missus and great job here in Norway.

and as above, stay away from any thing that says, “expat”

get some swiss friends, learn a bit of german and start going to some decent pubs that the expats and tourists dont find. I recommend the Total Bar.

I’ve lived just outside Zurich for the best part of 7 years and been regularly visiting for 10 years. I second what Ash says about anyone dissing the locals has never lived here and taken the chance to integrate. In the time I’ve lived here I’ve met some of the most genuine people I’ve met anywhere in the world. It does take a little time to figure out how the place ticks but if you make the effort to get through the cool exterior you’ll find the Swiss to be a whole lot of fun.

The country itself is an outdoor playground. There is something to do outdoors every weekend. Nowhere is really more than about 3 hours away and even when the weather is bad in one place there is nearly always a valley with dry and dusty trails that can be found not too far away.

The biking close to Zurich is quite good. There are municipal trails on the hills on both sides of the city. The city also maintains a pumptrack (with another one on the way and some dirt jump lines if you are into that). If you head a little off the beaten track there are literally hundreds of really great trails within easy access of the city centre. I organised regular rides once a week last year and between June and September we never repeated a single ride and spent the vast majority of each ride on single track. You’ll see some photos if you go to the facebook group linked to from the http://www.swissalpineadventure.com website.

In summer you have lifts that allow for 1500m to 2000m of descending which are really easily accessible from Zurich. A lot of the resorts close by are possible to link up into a kind of a passports du soleil type thing, but without the crowds and on better trails (in my opinion anyway).

In case you haven’t guessed I love it here.

Thats fantastic Dave. In fact you can see I found your site earlier on in the thread, which made me a lot cheerier about the prospect of moving there. I hope we can hook up one day and you can show a NooB the ropes 🙂

The next question is, where the hell do we live? I weirdly met a Swiss couple who live in Winterthur when I was guiding the other weekend. They say live there and work in Zurich to save on costs! Its hard to know where, hopefully the company will help out a bit.

I’ve only been to Zurich once or twice so can’t comment but I think this graph shows the difference in attitudes between the two “halves”…
Vote against gun ownership

Sorry for the hijack Flamejob but there’s some sweeping generalist rubbish right there in that statement above, which I can’t let lie 🙂

Beanum, are you implying that German-Speaking Switzerland voted to keep guns, whereas the French-Speaking voted to give them back? If yes then… you’re not really right.

If you look in detail at the commune by commune stuff, it’s generally the cities that voted to give them back (more leftists) and the countryside peeps that voted to keep them (more rightists). Hence why Basel-Stadt (where I live) was a clear “yes” to the initiative, even though it’s in the German part.

In fact, Basel-Stadt “beat” e.g. Vaud quite considerably. There were parts of Vaud which were as low as 30-odd percent “yes” (e.g. la Broye), and it was only the weight of Lausanne city which brought the overall cantonal vote to just over 50% for VD.

In fact, IIRC, Basel was only “beaten” by Geneva (Geneva had about 60% “yes” but I’m not sure what to make of that because only about 10 Swiss people live there ;-))

Thats fantastic Dave. In fact you can see I found your site earlier on in the thread, which made me a lot cheerier about the prospect of moving there. I hope we can hook up one day and you can show a NooB the ropes

The next question is, where the hell do we live? I weirdly met a Swiss couple who live in Winterthur when I was guiding the other weekend. They say live there and work in Zurich to save on costs! Its hard to know where, hopefully the company will help out a bit.

The where to live thing is personal preferance. You get a lot more for your money if you live outside of the city and with public transport the way it is it’s often quicker to get into Zurich from the suburbs by train than to cross the city by tram! Winterthur has a very regular train connection to Zurich and has the advantage of being a decent size town in it’s own right too. It’s a bit further away from the mountains though.

I’ve lived in Uster which is about 15mins by train from the city centre for 5 years. Regular train connections (every 15mins) and a decent enough town to be able to do your weekly shopping and go out for a meal in without any problems. It’s not the prettiest place in the world but we enjoyed it.

Right now we live near a place called Hinwil. It’s 25mins from the city centre by train but only has a connection every 30minutes. The nearby train station of Wetzikon does have 15min connections to Zurich though. The advantage of Hinwil is it’s at the foot of a hill called Bachtel (1100m) which has a top to bottom vertical distance of 600m and more trails on it than you can shake a quite large stick at. The town is a bit industrial but it’s got everything you’d need. The closes ski/bike resorts are only 45mins away and within two hours you’ve got over half of Switzerland plus surrounding countries.

Other places worth considering if you want to live out of town are Rapperswil which is about 10mins from Hinwil. It’s a decent sized town right on the lake with a really nice old town section and some nice cafe’s, bars and restaurants right on the lake. Train connections are better than every 15mins to Zurich and it will take between 25 and 35mins to the city centre depending on which route you use. Rents might be a bit more expensive here but it is quite a nice town.

Pfaffikon SZ (Not to be confused with Pfaffikon ZH) is right accross the lake at one of it’s only crossing points from Rapperswil. It has it’s own train hub too so there are also very regular connections to Zurich by train the town itself doesn’t have the charm that Rapperswil has but is in a lower tax area as it’s actually in Kanton Schwyz rather than Kanton Zurich. Pfaffikon is directly on the A3 which will get you to Graubunden for biking/skiing in no time. It’s also got regular train services to Landquart and Chur which will get you to any ski resorts in Graubunden quick and painfree.

Essentially there are hundreds of small towns all on railway lines and with easy access to motorways too. I’ve chosen to live on the eastern side of the city because it’s pretty easy to get in if I need to and I’ve got some great biking on my doorstep and really easy access to some incredible riding if I want. If you are a bit further west or north of the city riding is a bit more XCish and it can take longer to get to the mouontains (longer is relative in Switzerland, the country is small!). Having said that there is a guy who posts on here occasionally who lives in Aargau and he gets a lot of riding in, in his neck of the woods. He might be along shortly too.

Basically if you like to enjoy yourself and are willing to go look for it you’ll find plenty to do here. It’s a great place to live. I’ll be organising rides again on a fairly regular basis probably starting next month (snow dependent) and continuing into the summer and autumn.

Sorry for the hijack Flamejob but there’s some sweeping generalist rubbish right there in that statement above, which I can’t let lie

Beanum, are you implying that German-Speaking Switzerland voted to keep guns, whereas the French-Speaking voted to give them back? If yes then… you’re not really right.

If you look in detail at the commune by commune stuff, it’s generally the cities that voted to give them back (more leftists) and the countryside peeps that voted to keep them (more rightists). Hence why Basel-Stadt (where I live) was a clear “yes” to the initiative, even though it’s in the German part.

In fact, Basel-Stadt “beat” e.g. Vaud quite considerably. There were parts of Vaud which were as low as 30-odd percent “yes” (e.g. la Broye), and it was only the weight of Lausanne city which brought the overall cantonal vote to just over 50% for VD.

In fact, IIRC, Basel was only “beaten” by Geneva (Geneva had about 60% “yes” but I’m not sure what to make of that because only about 10 Swiss people live there ;-))

Ash, that really did make me giggle. Hit the nail on the head.

Wow thanks Dave. I know it takes a lot of effort to write such a considered post, I really appreciate it.
It is great that we have this conduit. Because of the type of people we are, we have special needs as far as how we conduct our lives. A lot of people I meet find it odd that a lot of my (and by extension Mrs Flamejob’s) life’s infrastructure is based on my ‘Hobby’. Hopefully other people will benefit in future too (Google loves STW!)

As far as left and rightisims go; I’ll find the trails first, then consider who is keeping their National Service rifle under their bed. 😉

As far as left and rightisims go; I’ll find the trails first, then consider who is keeping their National Service rifle under their bed.

Yeah, sorry about that 🙂

I lived in Zuerich a few years ago for a couple of years and can’t really add much to the sentiments of ash, ir12daveor and darrell. If I had to move from ‘home’ then it would be pretty much top of the list.

A couple of things I would repeat- there are big ex-pat communities in ZH (just as in most other Swiss cities) and IME most of the negative stereotypes are perpetuated here (or across the rostigraben – the kind of lazy stereotyping that a few Swiss buy into across language regions). I’ve never had any problems with Swiss being insular, but then I lived and worked with them, went out with them, enjoyed getting to recognise different dialects of the language(s) etc – and I was under pressure of feeling part of any expat community through my job or anything like that.

ir12daveor is right that a lot of people live in the ZH agglomeration (eg limmattal) or neighbouring kantons as the commute is brainlessly straightforward. I lived on the red light zone in the centre of town. I’d much prefer to be in the city, but for most places that are respectable you’d be looking at serious rent. That said, I had friends living in cheaper suburbs on either side of town, and it never took long to ride between them. Riding is nice there.

When I was there, I was young, relatively free, and single, so that will affect my opinion of the city massively. But, bear in mind, at the weekends I could go out on a Friday, come in at 3 or 4, gather together my gear (skis, climbing kit, bike) and get on the first train out (via the bakery on the corner), have a sleep, and spend the day in many of the mountains from Tessin to the Arlberg, and most of central CH. So, that could be St Anton, Engelberg, Andermatt, Lenzerheide, Locarno… the list is pretty much endless. For a weekend, pretty much anything in the Alps is within striking distance – not that you need to go that far – and with the rail links being so good (even better nowadays) there is always the chance to travel pretty extensively beyond that (shopping in Milano for an afternoon, weekend in Florence, Vienna… if that’s your bag). So it’s a great place if you have that kind of freedom.

A Swiss person would make an Englishman feel a lot more welcome than an Englishman would with an Easten European 😉

I have another relevant question, if I may?

All the buildings look like giant lego blocks with flats that all appear the same on the property sites that I have looked at. Where does one keep ones bike fleet? Also, do the flats normally come with parking; I am thinking of buying something like a Skoda Yeti or a Panda 4×4.

The living is most misleading. Most things swiss that are good are not obvious. The things you know about are the the things they have decided to let the foreigners know about e.g. Verbier/Davos etc, watches and chocolate (but the best choco they keep for themselves! Cailler… mmmm).

The best skiing and villages are hidden, the summer swimming gardens are often very sbutle, bars, restaurants etc etc etc

same with housing. It pretty much all looks sh1t form the outside, but is mostly stunning inside. Very efficient use of space we have found. Also we have also found incredibly well built.

IIRC They will advertise based on number of rooms, e.g. 5 zimmer 150m2, which is living room plus 4 bedrooms over 150m2. Doesn’t normally take into account bathrooms, kitchen or hall space.

You will also probably have a dedicated bike cellar, or if not that then certainly have your own cellar which is noramlly very secure and a great place for bike storage. This is also not mentioned, but for our flat 175m2 we almost double our space as we have 3 cellars! biggest total housing space we have ever lived in.

HTH, and indeed hope is correct!

Kev

Thanks Kev, It’s a bit difficult to do this from the south of Spain! At the moment we live in the coolest flat I have seen for a while, so it depresses me to move up there to cold central europe.

Cellars eh?

Aye, and you’ll prob have access to the nuclear bunker as well. That still freaks me out!

Weather is always sub tropical here in Basel, Zurich weather it total pap though. 😀

Kev

I agree with Big Scott Nanny about things being understated here. For the most part the places that you hear spoken about on a regular basis are overstated, expensive and don’t offer too much over the less well known (internationally) more local places.

Regarding housing with space at a bit of a premium you do get a lot of concrete block style building that are not particularly pleasing to the eye but in general they are very comfortable on the inside. A few things to look out for (especially if you live in a city) is that in many buildings there is a communal washing area where you get a day to do your laundry and can’t wash after 10pm or on Sundays. This becomes a bit frustrating if you ride a lot and regularly have dirty gear that needs washing. I’d be sure to look for an apartment that is at least plumbed to have a washing machine in the apartment. Our previous place didn’t have this, but our new one does. Makes life way handier.

Regarding storing bikes. Most apartments come with a small cellar area that is partitioned off by slatted wood. I personally wouldn’t store my bikes in this but I have friends who do. It;s usually quite small (maybe 4spm or so) and is really meant more as box storage than bike storage. Most building do have a bike storage room, but this is communal and again I’d not keep expensive bikes here. In out previous apartment we used one of the spare rooms as a bike room/workshop which worked fine until I had to clean the room when we moved out. :-/ My advice would be to get an apartment where you can also rent a “Bastelraum” in the basement. This is basically a hobby room which will be a bare concrete room with a light and power supply, some have running water too. They will range in size from about 12-20spm and work perfectly for bike storage and workshop but not every apartment building will have them to rent.

Check out this website to see what you’ll pay for rents for various sized apartments in different areas. You’ll quite often get pictures too to let you know what you can expect.
http://www.homegate.ch/en

Regarding cars, You’ll find yourself in good company over here with the Yeti. Skoda is hugely popular. I drive an Octavia Scout and find it spot on… except on occasion walking to the wrong one in a shopping centre car park because there are so many of the f**king things. 🙂 You’ll want to budget for a second set of wheels with winter tyres. It’s not law, but 100% normal to have winter tyres from November to April here and if you have an accident without them your insurance might decide not to pay out. They really are worth it. It’s night and day driving on snow/ice with winter tyres.

You’ll find costs for cars with various age/mileage on the following sites.
http://www.autoscout24.ch
http://www.car4you.ch

Most flats don’t come with a parking space. In the citys you can get a parking permit for a yearly fee for the area where you live and outside the rental company will rent you a space infront of your apartment. Usually for about 40CHF/month for an outside space or 90CHF/month for a covered over but unsecured space.

BTW… BSN wasn’t kidding about the Nuclear bunker! 😉

You don’t have to go far out of the city to find nicer chalet style houses.
big scot nanny, Callier chocolate is part of Nestle , so hardly a Swiss secret. Went to the Callier chocolate factory for a visit a few weeks ago, they have a tasting room 😀 try the caramel and salt, it’s great.