Downtown Switzerland

I have an evening in Zurich and go for a jog along the lake. Since autumnal and the light changing with the afternoon and clouds, I bring along my camera and take a few shots – pictured. My first visit to Zurich in 1984 for a swimming meet. It looks no different today, really, despite a few new buildings and roadworks around the train station. Clean and charming. White. I dodge the trams to get across the street. From here it is Gutenberg, Sweden - a new city! -and Helsinki.

Zurich likes to call itself "Downtown Switzerland" (according to the Tourist Board) and is the largest city in Switzerland. While the municipality has about 380,500 inhabitants, the metropolitan area is nearly 2 million inhabitants. The canton was permanently settled for around 7,000 years ago and Zurich's history of goes back to its founding by the Romans, who, in 15 BC, called it Turicum. During the Middle Ages Zurich gained the independent and privileged status of imperial immediacy and, in 1519, was the place of origin and centre of the Protestant Reformation in German-speaking Switzerland, led by Ulrich Zwingli (www.zurich.com)

Zurich today is one of the world's largest financial centres while the low tax rate (27% flat) attracts overseas companies to set up their headquarters here - like Delaware maybe. Or HongKong. According to several surveys from 2006 to 2008, Zurich was named the city with the best quality of life in the world as well as the wealthiest city in Europe (source: Mercer Consulting). British hedge funds, banks and private equity funds are moving, or threatening to move, here.