A good place to start is the Bahnhofstrasse, where you’ll see a few of those famous Swiss banks and also some of the most exclusive shops—with some of the highest price tags in the country. This is the city’s main street, often called the picture window of Switzerland.

If you walk the Bahnhofstrasse you’ll eventually come to Bürkliplatz and Lake Zürich. Where the Limmat River flows out from the lake, boat tours offer the best views.

A walk along the shore to your right, through the arboretum, leads past a number of rowing and boating clubs paralleling Mythenquai Street. At 88 Mythenquai, across the boat clubs’ parking lot, is an immense greenhouse called the Municipal Collection of Succulents. It is home to 25,000 succulents and cacti. The indoor garden is open weekdays 9–11 a.m. and 1:30–3 p.m.

Back on Bahnhofstrasse, on foot, you’ll find the most scenic sections of the old town between Bahnhofstrasse and the Limmat. One of the city’s major attractions is the Swiss National Museum, on the shore of the Limmat close to the main train station.
The museum chronicles Swiss civilization from prehistoric times to the present. The collection from the Roman era is particularly good.

The most-visited churches are also within walking distance of the central area. Across the Limmat, the Grossmünster 11th-century cathedral is distinguished by its twin towers. The Münster bridge from the cathedral leads to the 12th-century Frauenmünster with the famed stained-glass windows created in this century by Chagall.

A few minutes’ walk from the cathedral is Zürich’s Kunsthaus, an art museum with an excellent collection of Swiss masters, as well as works by Van Gogh, Cézanne, Renoir, Manet, Degas and Picasso.

Niederdorf is where Zürich’s citizens ease the stress of world financial responsibilities. Along crowded streets, the old-town section of Zürich pulsates with live jazz, smoky bars, packed discos and scores of restaurants. For a more subdued outing, plan to have an elegant dinner in an old guild house.