Cheese And Accordion Music in Zurich
27 May 2018
We said farewell to our Renault Captur and hopped on the train. Our hotel was out by the airport for an easy transit on the free shuttle tomorrow, but there was plenty of time left today to spend the evening hanging out in Zurich. It’s a fun experience when you have familiarized yourself with a city on your travels so much so that you no longer need the map. We popped out of the Zurich Hauptbahnhof and made our way to Niederhofstrasse!
Being a major city, Zurich was busy when we were here in the fall as it is busy now. But there is a different kind of zing in the springtime air, something about the air warming rather than cooling that gives the city a bit more pop. It’s a real shame we didn’t have more time to bring our swimsuits and jump in the river! We walked along the pedestrian street, checking out the shops and restaurants, filling our bottles in the fountain (remembering again how much I loved this), and just people watched in the busy city.
We were back in Switzerland, and that meant we were hunting down cheese for dinner. Fondue may be the more popular dish around the world, but we were looking for Raclette. Cheese freshly melted under a grille and poured over a plate of potatoes, meats, and veggies is a piece of gooey heaven... ignoring the calories of course! Last time in Zurich we found a restaurant right on the cobblestoned pedestrian street that had excellent fondue. A little touristy, sure... but the quality was high, the flavors authentic, and the price was right. If they made good fondue, we figured they would make good raclette as well. We made our way to Swiss Chuhli for our cheesy dinner! It was busy, and of course fresh melted cheese in either raclette or fondue requires a table-top heat source, so it was extremely warm inside the restaurant. Totally worth it though! Our table was set up with the raclette grille, which has a flat surface on top to heat the food, and little trays to put underneath to melt the cheese. Then, you take that beautiful, creamy melted cheese and scrape it over the other food. Simple and rustic, and nothing says “food of the Alps” more than this!
It was our last night of the trip, so we wanted to get out and find a bit of fun before we left for home. We wandered down the side alley to find a great little bar, one you would hardly notice from the outside except for the little painted sign. The Aelpli Bar is a cozy hangout with a mountain cottage theme, and the best part for me – they do traditional Swiss music every night!
I have a deep love for traditional music. Hearing old songs that help to make up the cultural identity of a people is an experience that lets you connect with the past like no other. Anyone can jump on the latest pop music trend, but to keep alive centuries-old music styles, instruments, and songs takes a special level of dedication and passion, it takes a true love of the art form. The diversity of sounds and styles from region to region really does well to break through the homogeny of modern mainstream music and gives you something unique to remember each different place. We’ve heard jigs and reels in Ireland, bouzouki ballads in Greece, opera in Austria, taiko drumming in Japan, and now we are back to hear accordion-based mountain polka in Switzerland!
Full disclosure: accordion music is very much a guilty pleasure of mine!
We were some of the only people in the Aelpli Bar this evening, which was expected this late on a Sunday night. The same lady was there, and without the crowds that were here last time, we had a bit more of a chance to sit and talk a bit. She was proudly telling us about their dedication to music, showing us pictures of a few of the famous musicians who have passed through over the years. We ordered the Aelpli-milch, their creamy house-special drink that we love so much, and settled back for some polka!
They passed out a few percussion pieces for us to play along with – a set of wooden spoons, a strip of leather with wood slats, and a few other little things we got to tinker with. The accordion player jammed out some great polka songs while we tried our best to keep along. I’m the musician of our pair, and I play a number of instruments to varying degree, but I have to say Beth found her way around the spoons much better than I did!! She kept up with the oom-pah rhythm of the accordion as we figured getting our own set of playing spoons was in the future!
Tomorrow would come soon enough and bring with it the long flight home and our return to normal life, but we figured to let tomorrow wait for its turn. We sat back on the wooden bench with our drinks and closed out our last night in Europe with some amazing Swiss polka!
Prost aus der Schweiz!
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