{"id":32110,"date":"2026-03-14T18:27:10","date_gmt":"2026-03-14T18:27:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/32110\/"},"modified":"2026-03-14T18:27:10","modified_gmt":"2026-03-14T18:27:10","slug":"my-affordable-solo-city-break-featuring-a-fiery-tradition-loved-by-locals","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/32110\/","title":{"rendered":"My affordable solo city break featuring a fiery tradition loved by locals"},"content":{"rendered":"

When arranging a solo trip to Zurich<\/a> I had planned for lazy mornings and leisurely lunches. I didn\u2019t expect to find myself invested in the fate of a weather-forecasting \u202fpapier-m\u00e2ch\u00e9 snowman. Then again, I hadn\u2019t anticipated the\u202fSechsel\u00e4uten\u202fspring festival.<\/p>\n

Zurich has a perhaps unfair reputation as a boring city. Clean, safe and quiet \u2013 certainly not exciting. This seemed perfect for my first solo trip<\/a>, however, and after a relentlessly busy winter, a bit of peace was exactly what I needed \u2013 but serendipity had something else in mind altogether.<\/p>\n

Each April, Zurich awakens from hibernation with a bang. As many as 100,000 people gather as\u202fan 11-foot tall\u202fsnowman called the\u202fB\u00f6\u00f6gg\u202fis paraded for miles through the town, before being mounted atop a pyre by Lake Zurich. He\u2019s set on fire, and the amount of time it takes for the flames to reach his head (packed with firecrackers) indicates how good summer will be across Switzerland. The faster he blows the better.<\/p>\n

New FeatureIn ShortQuick Stories. Same trusted journalism.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s a lot of fun, but people here do take the B\u00f6\u00f6gg seriously,\u201d tour guide Regula tells me. \u201cWhat he predicts is printed in newspapers across the country. The first time it was ever cancelled was during the pandemic. Customs <\/a>run deep in Zurich, and this is one of our favourites.\u201d<\/p>\n

I can see why. The festival<\/a> takes place over two days, during which much of the Alt Stadt (old town) is pedestrianised, and celebrations are everywhere. On my way to the\u202f Grossm\u00fcnster\u202fcathedral, I stumble upon the Sunday children\u2019s parade, where 2-3,000 youngsters march in costume, their proud parents and smiling visitors lining the 3km route. There are girls in dirndl-like dresses called\u202ftrachten\u202fand boys in red waistcoats. Riding schools come by on decorated horses, while an 800-strong brass band provides a score of\u202fSwissguggenmusik.<\/p>\n

\"Children'sChildren parade at Zurich\u2019s Spring Festival (Photo: Michael Derrer Fuchs\/Getty)<\/p>\n

The joy in the air is palpable, and utterly delightful. One mother, named Maria, says it\u2019s the highlight of their year. \u201cIt\u2019s important to keep things like this going,\u201d she adds. \u201cI love to see her dressed up and excited, just as I was.\u201d<\/p>\n

The fun doesn\u2019t stop there. No matter where I go on this \u201cpeaceful\u201d solo trip I find myself in the thick of it, from Lindenhof \u202fsquare, where this year\u2019s guest canton of Zug is showing an exhibition, to the riverside street of Limmatquai, where more bands go past. While eating lunch<\/a> in the 15th-century\u202f Zeughauskeller \u202frestaurant I find myself engaged in conversation with waiters and fellow diners as we watch the parade through stained glass windows. I never feel alone or unsafe\u2013 and nor am I bored.<\/p>\n

\"B??ggRevelries ramp up at Zurich\u2019s Spring Festival (Photo: David Biedert\/Zurich Tourismus)<\/p>\n

I catch my first glimpse of the B\u00f6\u00f6gg in the pastel-hued\u202fM\u00fcnsterhof\u202fsquare. He\u2019s surrounded by locals happy to see an old friend, and perplexed tourists wondering why this snowman is here in April. Sechsel\u00e4uten goes back to the 16th century, but the B\u00f6\u00f6gg evolved organically in the 1800s when local boys would burn a bogeyman figure at the spring equinox. The two traditions were combined at the end of the 19th century, and here we are.<\/p>\n

In the bar of my hotel,\u202f The Dolder Grand<\/a>, the talk is all about the festival, and over a cocktail I get chatting to a Swiss businesswoman who is thrilled to be in town for it. While the Dolder is on the luxurious side, Zurich isn\u2019t as prohibitively expensive as many think, with three-to-four-star options starting from around \u00a3140 plus \u00a33.30 tourist tax. Budget flights from airports across the UK make it more accessible too, with\u202f Edelweiss<\/a> \u202flaunching another from Glasgow<\/a> in May.<\/p>\n

\"Z??rich,The B\u00f6\u00f6gg meets it fate (Photo: Werner Buechel\/Getty)<\/p>\n

Day two officially kicks off with a parade of the city\u2019s 26 guilds, but the celebrations begin early as the wine flows<\/a> in Zurich\u2019s central squares. The associations of craftsmen and merchants date back to the 1300s, and have historically been hugely influential in political and civic life. Around 3,500 take part, alongside 350 horsemen, 50 horse-drawn floats and 30 music ensembles. Plus, of course, the B\u00f6\u00f6gg.<\/p>\n

It feels like a true celebration of spring as the sun shines on thousands of baskets of blooms, later used to shower guildspeople as they head to the\u202fSechsel\u00e4utenplatz \u2013 the main square \u2013 where the B\u00f6\u00f6gg finally meets his maker. With typical Swiss<\/a> promptness, he is lit dead on six, crowds cheering as the flames rise. It takes around 26 minutes for his head to blow up, sadly indicating a poor summer ahead, but that doesn\u2019t stop the festivities. Instead, an unofficial tradition kicks off barbecue season, as the embers are used to grill sausages with the sun setting and the party continuing into the night.<\/p>\n

\"B??ggBarbecuing sausages in the embers of the B\u00f6\u00f6gg (Photo: Agi Simoes\/Zurich Tourismus)<\/p>\n

As smoke billows over the lake, I think about why I came here. I may have been seeking peace and quiet, but this Swiss spectacle was what I really needed to come back to life for spring.<\/p>\n

How to get there<\/p>\n

Zurich can be reached by train from London<\/a>, with one change in Paris, in about nine hours. Swiss, British Airways, easyJet and Edelweissfly from various UK airports. See skyscanner.net<\/a><\/p>\n

Where to stay<\/p>\n

The five-star Dolder Grand\u202f<\/a> has doubles from\u202f714 CHF (\u00a3648); four-star Sorell Hotel Seidenhof\u202f <\/a>from 320 CHF (\u00a3300) with breakfast, and the three-star\u202fHotel Helvetia<\/a>\u202ffrom CHF 160 (\u00a3150) with breakfast.\u202f See booking.com<\/a> and hotels.com<\/a> for more.<\/p>\n

More information: myswitzerland.com, zuerich.com<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"When arranging a solo trip to Zurich I had planned for lazy mornings and leisurely lunches. I didn\u2019t…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":32111,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[6],"tags":[3579,5684,11840,17,1063,51],"class_list":["post-32110","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-zurich","tag-europe-travel","tag-iweekend","tag-solo-travel","tag-switzerland","tag-travel","tag-zurich"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@ch\/116228944186209939","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32110","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=32110"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32110\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/32111"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=32110"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=32110"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=32110"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}