On Zürich

Zürich confounds first expectations. You arrive primed for a stiff, expensive banking city and instead find a place that has spent decades turning itself into one of the most liveable, most beautiful small cities in Europe. The lake is cleaner than a swimming pool. The trams run to the second. The old town is genuinely medieval. And then you turn a corner into a Chagall interior, or ride a century-old funicular up to a university terrace with the Alps spread out in front of you, and the city reveals itself properly.

The best version of Zürich is slow Zürich — the version you get when you stop trying to tick it off. Sit at a Niederdorf terrace at 6pm when the after-work crowd fills the square. Take the S10 on a weekday morning when the mist is still on the mountain and you have the Uetliberg tower almost to yourself. Find the table by the window at Zeughauskeller on a Tuesday night. The city rewards those who stay long enough to let it breathe.