The (surprisingly) wilder side of Zurich

Zurich is a place that you’d perhaps associate with certain things: big banks, luxury shop-lined streets rattling with trams, smartly-attired businessmen pacing along, checking the time on their expensive (Swiss) watches.

This isn’t an entirely inaccurate picture (although these days the businessmen are just as likely to be more casually-dressed and glancing at their high-end smartphones).

But Switzerland’s largest city is more diverse and intriguing than you might expect.

The historic heart, in particular, is a charmer, with medieval churches and guild houses attracting admiring gazes on both sides of the River Limmat, which begins here at the outfall of the swan-strewn Lake Zurich.

I like this part of the city — it’s nice for a wander and a boat cruise — but a few other neighbourhoods merit a detour.

In the west of Zurich, where swathes of railway tracks writhe past former industrial sites transformed into cool arts quarters and mixed-use districts with glossy office and hotel blocks, the city also has a compelling rural side.

This Sunday afternoon, for example, I’m climbing through the vineyards of Hongg, which was absorbed into Zurich in 1934, but retains the air of a village, with colourfully-painted old houses and newer, low-rise apartments hedged around a pretty, red-spired church with bucolic peaks rising behind it.

Up there, Kaferberg (571m) is a favourite summit for walkers — and there are plenty out today, many in hiking gear, wielding Nordic walking poles. From Hongg’s lawned churchyard, I look over the grapes flourishing on the green slopes rising up from the Limmat (winemaking arrived in Switzerland with the ancient Romans, but there’s evidence of viticulture in Hongg since at least the 15th century).

Zurich’s skyline is visible in the distance, as are the distinctive triple towers of my hotel, the Mercure Zurich City. That’s on the other side of the river in Altstetten, another western Zurich district swallowed up by the city in the early 20th century (it’s a five-minute train ride from Zurich Hauptbahnhof, the central railway station).

Near the Swiss Life Arena — which hosts ice hockey games and music concerts — the hotel is where we’re spending the first night of our Best of Switzerland tour with Globus.

We’ll see plenty of magical Swiss alpine landscapes over the coming week or so, but having free time to see a different side of Zurich is a pleasing way to kick things off.

From Altstetten, it’s about half an hour on foot to Hongg, but it takes me longer as there are various distractions along the way. Most are set by or on the Limmat, which is gushing at a fair pace on this midsummer’s day, on its way to meet the Aare, a tributary of the River Rhine.

Walkers, joggers, cyclists and fishermen are on the tree-shaded paths as I cross a footbridge to the Werdinsel, a 550m-long island that doubles as a nature reserve and leisure haven.

Strolling along its paths, edged by allotments, I pass a couple having a riverside picnic beneath an oak tree, a man and his boy kicking a football around a grass field and other families tucking into refreshments at an outdoor kiosk.

The other (west) end of this island is apparently a magnet for naturalists, but this (east) end requires swimwear at least.

Dotted with barbecue spots, play areas and small pools, Flussbad Au-Hongg is one of Zurich’s designated open-air public summer pools. Swimmers are doing breaststroke and crawls in the channel of the river on the island’s north side.

Post-swim, they dry off and chat on the grassy banks. I spot one trio in their 20s, sitting together in silence, all reading paperbacks as a grey heron soars by.

While there are visible currents here, the river is more threatening as it rushes on the south side of the island, thrashing past a power plant with formidable force. The Limmat has been tapped here to generate hydroelectric power and in the past it fuelled the island’s former gunpowder and flax spinning mills.

As I return to my hotel for a welcome dinner with my group, I pause by Hongg Weir. Two young men are perched precariously on the side of a bridge, thrusting out their phones and smiling for selfies. One slip and they’ll be swept downstream in the river’s tumultuous froth. But, as they carry on clicking and smiling, it seems they’re happy to take their chances here in the wild west of Zurich.

+ Steve McKenna was a guest of Globus. They have not influenced this story, or read it before publication.

fact file + For more information on visiting Zurich and Switzerland, see zuerich.com and myswitzerland.com. + Running between May and October, Globus’ nine-day Best of Switzerland tour begins and ends in Zurich. Visiting the likes of St Moritz, Zermatt, Lucerne, Lugano and Bern, it costs from $5649 a person (based on double occupancy). globus.com.au + If visiting independently, rooms at Mercure Zurich City cost from around $224 a night. all.accor.com