Cold and frosty nights probably wouldn’t be your ideal weekend break away to an alternative clubbing destination and I must admit when I was assigned Clubbing Weekend Break: Zurich, I was less than impressed by my editor’s imagination and the fact that I’d have to pay for the trip myself. Really, what does Lindt chocolate, Swiss army knives and chiming clocks have in common with hot women in skimpy bikinis and pumping ‘bass in yer face’ music? We all know the answer is very little, any 020er could tell you that. However, what unfolded was a magical weekend shining a truly different light on this clean-cut city which is usually associated only with banking and mountains than sweaty dance clubs.

The journey

We caught a sexy Swiss Air flight out of Heathrow – not because Heathrow is super cool but because my girlfriend said she’d pick me up from there and I would be saved the hassle of catching public transport. The flight staff on the plane soon made up for the ?97 return ticket by offering a complimentary cheese or ham roll accompanied by an alcoholic beverage or soft drink. These Swiss are different, later they came back through the cabin and offered the remaining rolls to those with hungers more great than mine. I decided to save my hunger for something when we were back on terra firma.

Terra firma

Landing was a doddle for our trilingual pilot and once through friendly border control and arriving in the very large main airport we headed to a cash machine to buy some local currency to purchase a ticket on the train to the town centre. Swiss are lovely people but they are also very strict, boarding a train without a ticket will cost you 80 CHF (c. ?35) – tourist or not a tourist.

We arrived at our hotel close to Central Station and dropped our bags off because tonight was Friday and the night was about to start so we wanted to get some food in us to keep away the cold. So being hungry guys in a new city we opted for Italian. If you didn’t already know, Switzerland is made up of four spoken languages, Swiss German, French, Italian and Romanish (a mix of Roman and Latin). You won’t find too many people speaking Romanish however, about 1%. In Zurich Swiss German is the language of choice although they all speak German too, if you ask politely. And like any good Swiss person they’ll converse in all 3 of Switzerland’s three main tongues. What’s fascinating is Swiss speak English no matter whether they are school kids or grandmothers working in bakeries.

Festivals

The Swiss are a funny lot, they like their festivals and like most other mainland Europeans they like even more to be involved. This Friday night was no exception and there were thousands of people dressed up in colourful attire celebrating the oncoming winter season. Well, I guessed it was a festival but I’ve seen how some of these Swiss dress up on the slopes…

Clubs

Okay, let’s visit the clubs.

During the two nights we visited two clubs, the Friday night we arrived at Dachkantine which was set in an industrial area of Zurich not too far from town. The club was next to a very tacky club sponsored by a commercial radio station and opposite a ‘bling-bling’ hip hop club. Dachkantine looked impressive from the outside with the door men guarding what seemed like an old factory ‘stop and search’ shed which housed the club cashier. The door had a passing go fee of 25 CHF (about ?11) and included an inky stamp on your wrist. The doorman led us through a dimly lit dingy hospital-like corridor, which arrived at an elevator, which ascended to the main club.

The club was very ‘warehouse’ but totally authentic and the music pulsated around the room majestically in a way you could feel vibrate through your heart but somehow you still could speak louder than to have an occasional chat.

The club had a couple of rooms but the one we liked most was the back room where Matthew Deer played a live set. A nervous looking but competent female DJ who played some hard and bouncy tunes, which shook all those that strutted the dance floor, preceded him. This Swiss club could have been in the darker depths of London, banter in the toilets, sweaty faces on the floor – all seemed to take well to English tongues. In fact everyone was Swiss apart from us. It’s nice to be different.

Overall we couldn’t fault the club and left around 0430am after much dancing to some really good tunes. There was a row of cabs outside the club waiting and we jumped in one that rushed us through the cold night back to the warmth of our hotel for a price lower than it cost the three of us to arrive there with a tram.

Who loves chocolate?

Saturday arrived sooner then we expected and we visited the town centre to fill our stockings for our girlfriends’ chocolate needs. It was part of the premise for her letting me take the assignment in fact. We headed to a restaurant for brunch at a great place called Hiltl where a vegetarian buffet sat. Charging was dependent on the weight of your plate (with the food on). Over 60 different dishes didn’t help and my meal came to over 28 CHF (c. ?12) – which isn’t actually too bad considering the quality of the food but my friend’s meal came to only 17 CHF… Of course then there are drinks on top of that. The restaurant also boasted an a la carte menu which equally looked as impressive.

There’s a wonderful lake in Zurich with a variety of bird life to feed if you feel like chilling out between stopping off at plush cafes and visiting some of the many happening fashion shops. As you would expect there is a lot of money floating around Zurich so there are plenty of pricey labels from France and Italy to satisfy the ‘shopaholics’ among us. The prices of garments at first glance might seem quite expensive but after a quick currency calculation aren’t really too bad and you may actually discover something you might not find in London.

Back to clubbing

Okay, back to clubbing and our visit to a club many people had warned us to be huge, pretentious and over-priced with one big dance floor and not worth the bother.

Kaufleuten is more than just a club. It’s a restaurant too and if the prices of the drinks were anything to go by then we were lucky that we’d already eaten.

Kaufleuten was a huge club and did only have one dance floor however it wasn’t as pretentious as people had suggested although its clientele certainly didn’t hang out with the local chavs outside Burger King. The music policy was good and in no way was commercial as one would come to expect from such a large sized club with one dance floor. The club had a few members’ areas, which we were kindly given access to but these weren’t anything more than bars with balconies and extra toilets.

Success

The clubs we visited were part of a winning formula for a great weekend and although each one was very different to the other each definitely had more positives than negatives and any hardened clubber could find themselves in for a good night.

On the Sunday we took a train to the outskirts of the town in to the mountains where we had spectacular views of the countryside and city. And followed by a hot chocolate of course.

If you can’t make it to Zurich here are a couple of things to buy to give you that authentic Zurich feel:

  • Buy a a famous Swiss army knife from Victorinox (£20)
  • Get yourself one of those great Swiss watches, to save some dosh buy a cheap Swatch (£45)
  • Get down to your local Tesco and buy a slab of Laughing Cow cheese and a box of Lindt chocolate (£4.50)
  • Dress up in your finest Heidi outfit and skip around Hampstead Heath with a piece of straw between your teeth and a goat in tow (priceless).

Okay, forget the goat.