The largest city in Switzerland, a banking and watchmaking metropolis where the River Limmat leaves Lake Zurich, with an older and stranger story hidden in its old town. On the Lindenhof hill the Romans and then the medieval city began; from the pulpit of the twin-towered Grossmuenster the priest Huldrych Zwingli launched the Swiss Reformation in fifteen nineteen, stripping the churches and remaking the city as a Protestant republic. Across the river the Fraumuenster glows with windows by Marc Chagall, and Saint Peter's carries the largest church clock face in Europe. From the founding hill the great avenue of Bahnhofstrasse runs down to the lake past the banking heart of Paradeplatz, while the former factory quarter of Zurich-West has been reborn as a district of art and design. Read the city that reformed itself at your own pace.
