Switzerland · Old Town
Zurich
A self-guided walking tour of the Zurich Old Town, every street in one day.
Every street on the menu.
Every street in the Old Town of Zurich is a line of dots you collect by walking it. I have been lying in one of them for six hundred years and I am still not finished.
At a glance
Plan your walk.
- Distance
- 20.1 km
- Time
- about 5.5 hours
- Streets
- 112
- Steps
- 18 streets with steps
- Start point
- Grossmünster
- Phone needed while walking
- no
- Works offline
- yes
- Expires
- never
The Old Town
Every street, drawn.
Every lane inside that line is a course. The circles are fruit.
Landmarks
What I would eat first.
Landmarks are fruit. The bigger the sight, the bigger the bonus.
Grossmünster 1,500 points
Two towers facing the Fraumünster across the water. Look up, then look down: someone waits below, and the card says who. Two towers. I would give both a slow look.
Cabaret Voltaire 500 points
A doorway on Spiegelgasse where Dada began. Two identical syllables, and the most edible word I know. How that word got picked is the best part, and I am keeping it.
Fraumünster 500 points
On the left bank, facing the Grossmünster across the water. Go in when the sun is out. What the light does in there is the card's business. I will only say it reminds me of a fruit bowl.
St. Peter 500 points
The tower above the Lindenhof that you can read the time from a long way off. Stand still and keep your eyes on it: something up there moves the way the locals asked it to. I count in ice ages, so I rarely notice such things. This one I noticed.
Bürkliplatz 250 points
The square where the Old Town runs out of streets and into the lake. On certain days it turns into a larder, and I have feelings about larders. Who it is named for, and why, the card tells.
Lindenhof 250 points
A terrace on the hilltop above the left bank, with the Old Town spread below. A chronicle says 52 lime trees went in here in 1474. What else this hill has seen, the card keeps. Up here, no one is in a hurry. My kind of place.
Rathaus 250 points
A town hall with its feet in the river. Stand on the bridge beside it and look underneath. How you keep a house warm with no dry ground under it is the card's story. I tried standing in a river once. The river won.
Wasserkirche 250 points
A church on the right bank, close by the river, with more than one career behind it. What it did in between is the card's story. I like a building that changes its menu.
Eating
Actual food.
What the Swiss culinary heritage inventory keeps from Zurich is small and detailed: a sausage named after a lane, a honey biscuit with a picture on top, almond paste from a wooden mould, and a muesli first served on the Zürichberg. Small things, carefully shaped. A glacier shaped me, so I relate.
With meat
One dish, on purpose. The Swiss inventory's Zurich list is mostly breads, biscuits and sweets, and the Augustiner Schüblig is the savoury entry that comes from the city itself.
Augustiner Schüblig
A cooked sausage of beef, pork and bacon, named after the Augustinergasse, where the Niedermann butcher family created it in the late 1950s. It sits a good quarter hour in hot water that must not bubble, then comes with potato salad, green salad, bread or a potato gratin. A sausage with a street address. I am a street, more or less.
Sources: Kulinarisches Erbe der Schweiz, Augustiner Schüblig
Vegetarian
Tirggel
A very hard, very thin honey biscuit with a picture on its top. Honey, ginger, anise, coriander, rose water, flour. Its home is the canton of Zurich, on record since the 15th century, and it belongs to the cold season, from Samichlaus to Sechseläuten. Very hard. I take that as a compliment.
Zürcher Leckerli
Marzipan, pressed in a wooden mould. Peeled almonds, icing sugar, egg white, almond oil, rose water. A carved pattern you are allowed to eat. That is my kind of art.
Birchermüesli
The doctor behind the name served the original to the patients of Lebendige Kraft, the sanatorium he opened on the Zürichberg in 1904. Oat flakes, sweetened condensed milk, lemon juice, grated apple with skin and core, ground nuts or almonds. The doctor's own recipe. I would finish the bowl.
Vegan
One dish, on purpose. No Zurich entry in the Swiss inventory could be sourced as vegan, so Rösti stands in. It is Swiss rather than Zurich's alone, and vegan only when fried in oil or margarine.
Rösti
Potatoes, fat and salt, fried golden brown and crisp. Hardly anything on a Swiss plate is more Swiss. It is vegan when the pan holds oil or margarine, not butter or lard. Crunch is my first language.
Ask what it was fried in before you order. Butter or lard makes it not vegan.
Sources: Daily Vegan, Schweizer Rösti, t-online, Rösti recipe (Silke Ahrens), The Lucky Tofu, Vegane Rösti
Afternoon coffee
Schwarzenbach Münstergasse the old one
The family has run this shop on the Münstergasse since 1864. Spices, nuts, dried fruit, pulses, tea and coffee pile up in it, and the coffee comes from their own roastery. At the espresso bar you drink a coffee or a cappuccino while you browse, or one of the many drinking chocolates. I would start at the nuts.
- Mon09:00–18:30
- Tue09:00–18:30
- Wed09:00–18:30
- Thu09:00–18:30
- Fri09:00–18:30
- Sat09:00–17:00
- Sunclosed
Sources: GaultMillau, Züri isst in der Altstadt (city guide), Zürich Tourismus, H. Schwarzenbach AG (business listing)
Checked 24 September 2026.
Name origin
Why it is called Zurich.
The name first turns up around 200, on a Roman gravestone: Turicum, a customs post. By 680–700 the place is called Ziurichi. The French say Zurich, the Italians Zurigo, the Romansh Turitg. Four languages, one town. It tastes the same in all of them.
Sources: Historisches Lexikon der Schweiz — Zürich (Gemeinde), https://hls-dhs-dss.ch/de/articles/000171/2015-01-25/ (accessed 2026-09-24), Kanton Zürich — Turicum: eine römische Hafenstadt und Zollstation, https://www.zh.ch/de/news-uebersicht/medienmitteilungen/2021/02/turicum-eine-roemische-hafenstadt-und-zollstation.html (accessed 2026-09-24)
Why here
Somebody stood here and decided.
Where the Limmat leaves the lake, between the Albis ridge in the west and the Adlisberg and Zürichberg in the east. On the left bank rises a moraine hill, the Lindenhof one of its tops, and from 80 BC a Celtic town sat on it, its well-off upper class running a mint. From the middle of the first century the Romans spread from that hill down to the river. A lake that drains into a river is a lake that delivers. Everyone who built here worked that out.
Sources: Historisches Lexikon der Schweiz — Zürich (Gemeinde), https://hls-dhs-dss.ch/de/articles/000171/2015-01-25/ (accessed 2026-09-24), Kanton Zürich — Turicum: eine römische Hafenstadt und Zollstation, https://www.zh.ch/de/news-uebersicht/medienmitteilungen/2021/02/turicum-eine-roemische-hafenstadt-und-zollstation.html (accessed 2026-09-24)
Why then
When the first stone went down.
Around 200 a gravestone names the Statio Turicensis, a customs post for goods crossing towards Raetia. Running itself came slowly. In 1098 the imperial bailiwick went to the Zähringen dukes. When their line ended in 1218, the king stopped handing it down and lent it for a term to an official, usually one of the townsfolk. So the town answered directly to the emperor. Confirmed again and again up to 1512, that standing is what the town's self-rule grew from. In 1351 Zurich joined the Confederation. Slow cooking. My favourite kind.
Sources: Historisches Lexikon der Schweiz — Zürich (Gemeinde), https://hls-dhs-dss.ch/de/articles/000171/2015-01-25/ (accessed 2026-09-24), Historisches Lexikon der Schweiz — Zürich (Kanton), https://hls-dhs-dss.ch/de/articles/007381/2017-08-24/ (accessed 2026-09-24)
Who ruled
Everyone who thought they owned this.
I outlasted all of them. It is the one thing I am good at.
- 1173–1218
The dukes of Zähringen, sole lords of the town once the Lenzburg line had died out. The royal palace probably became their castle, with towers and ditches. Towers I respect. Ditches are where the good gravel collects.
Sources: Historisches Lexikon der Schweiz — Zürich (Gemeinde), https://hls-dhs-dss.ch/de/articles/000171/2015-01-25/ (accessed 2026-09-24)
- 1336–1798
The guilds. In 1336 Rudolf Brun's guild revolution stopped the rise of the patricians, and Brun was elected mayor for life, with dictatorial powers. The guild constitution held, in altered form, until 1798. More than four centuries. By my clock, a light starter.
Sources: Historisches Lexikon der Schweiz — Zürich (Gemeinde), https://hls-dhs-dss.ch/de/articles/000171/2015-01-25/ (accessed 2026-09-24)
- 1803–
A canton of the Swiss Confederation, after five years as a canton of the Helvetic Republic from 1798. It has stayed that way since 1803. I understand. I have stayed where I am for a good deal longer.
Sources: Historisches Lexikon der Schweiz — Zürich (Kanton), https://hls-dhs-dss.ch/de/articles/007381/2017-08-24/ (accessed 2026-09-24)
The emblem
What the shield means.
Silver and blue, split once on the diagonal. Nothing else on it. The shield first shows up in 1384 on a seal of the imperial court of justice, on a coin around 1417/18, and in colour for the first time on a banner in 1437. City and canton carry the same one. Two colours and one straight line: the easiest shield I have ever tried to digest.
Sources: Stadt Zürich, Stadtarchiv — Das Wappen der Stadt Zürich, https://www.stadt-zuerich.ch/de/stadtleben/stadtportraet/zuerichs-geschichte/stadtarchiv/wissensportal/wappen-stadt-zuerich.html (accessed 2026-09-24)
Emblem: Original artwork for Cobble Gobble — no third-party source
Three facts
Three things I know about this place.
The four-storey core of the carpenters' guild house, the Zunfthaus zu Zimmerleuten, is dated to 1156 by the tree rings in its timber. I respect anything that carries its age in layers. I do the same.
Sources: Historisches Lexikon der Schweiz — Zürich (Gemeinde), https://hls-dhs-dss.ch/de/articles/000171/2015-01-25/ (accessed 2026-09-24)
The Schipfe, below the Lindenhof, is one of the oldest quarters in the city. The name comes from boats: to schupfen them, push them onto the bank and back into the water. In the Middle Ages important goods changed hands here; from the 16th century it was silk, bathhouses and boatbuilding.
Sources: Zürich Tourismus — Schipfe, das älteste Quartier Zürichs, https://www.zuerich.com/de/besuchen/sehenswuerdigkeiten/schipfe-das-aelteste-quartier-zuerichs (accessed 2026-09-24)
From 1642 into the 18th century the town built a star-shaped ring of ramparts that doubled the area inside its walls. The Schanzengraben, where this level ends in the west, still carries the Schanze, the rampart, in its name. Star-shaped. So is a good biscuit.
Sources: Historisches Lexikon der Schweiz — Zürich (Gemeinde), https://hls-dhs-dss.ch/de/articles/000171/2015-01-25/ (accessed 2026-09-24)
Street words
What the names on the signs mean.
- Gasse
- A lane. Much of the Old Town is Gassen, and the narrower they get, the crunchier.
- Graben
- A ditch. A street called Graben tends to run where a town ditch once did, like the Schanzengraben on the western edge.
- Münster
- A great church. The Old Town has two, looking at each other across the river.
The size of it
Walk it in a day: Zurich in numbers.
Counted from the streets in the level itself, not from a guidebook.
- 112streets
- 1,068dots
- 15.8km of street
- 20.1km on foot
- 5.7hours at a stroll
Nearby
Old Towns close to this one.
The game
Your first city is free.
Cobble Gobble is a walking game for iPhone. Claim any city as your free one. Every other city is a one-time purchase you keep for good, Family Sharing included, and a city you own plays fully offline.