Beyer Clock Museum - and Diamonds

See also:
http://www.beyer-ch.com/en/museum/portrait-museum.html

On Wednesday 16 November, another large group of ZIWA's Swinging Sixties met at Paradeplatz in Zurich to go on a tour of discovery of the nearby Beyer Clock Museum. There are signs to the museum all down the famous Bahnhofstrasse, but how many people had been inside the store made prominent by the enormous pocket watch outside? Once again, chairlady Vreni had laid on a fascinating morning for us.

Inside the small premises, we were divided into two groups and welcomed by our guides, Monika Winkler and Beatriz Bretschergartner. One group went downstairs to see the collection of antique timepieces while the others headed upstairs to see some of the gorgeous jewellery that we might aspire to own. In 1971, Theodor Beyer founded the family business and opened his collection to the public. We learnt that the history of timepieces dates back to 1400 BC, with the invention of dials, water and fire clocks. An early timepiece was the sundial which utilises a shadow stick to display light and dark. And the Sumerians were even able to measure time in steps as early as 2000 BC. The first sundials were known to exist in 200 BC; but the earliest clock in the Beyer collection was a copy of a water clock dating back to 1140 BC, which had 12 time gaps marked.


The Greeks refined the timepiece which was important at court; and we still say that 'time has run out' thanks to a sand timer. Wax candles were used in the ninth century but were expensive to make, and hourglasses were popular in the 13th century. The museum also features an early European mechanical clock dating from 1532. Monasteries and ships all needed to have reliable timepieces, and the sun and sand have both been popular for measuring the passage of time.



In the 17th century, clocks for the home became popular status symbols, with the mechanics utilising a folio and balance wheel or a pendulum. Then portable clocks became the rage, with clocks for the table and watches to attach to one's clothing as a fashion accessory. The museum has many splendid examples of clocks and watches from Theodor Beyer's private collection. Switzerland became famous as a maker of beautiful and reliable timepieces. However, when Japan developed the quartz watch, they could now beat the Swiss on price, but the Swatch remains ever-popular.



After this fascinating glimpse into the history of clocks and watches, we went upstairs to see and handle the other side of the Beyer business, its precious stones and diamond rings. There is a workshop on the premises, where diamonds, sapphires and emeralds from Africa or South America are fashioned into very expensive jewellery. Under the eyes of a security guard, we were able to try on a Madagascan sapphire ring and to hear how diamonds are given a unique number by laser. Rings of emerald, garnet, citrine and beryl are fashioned and sold here, and everyone had the chance for a few minutes to choose their dream item.

Afterwards we walked the short distance to the newly opened Moevenpick 20/20 restaurant for a very pleasant lunch. Thanks once again to Vreni for arranging this fascinating morning.

See also this link: https://www.moevenpick-wein.com/de/weinkeller/20-20-by-moevenpick-wein-restaurant.html

Julia Newton, 21 November 2016.

Visit to the United Nations in Geneva

See also this link: http://www.unog.ch/

Waiting to start our UN tour

Yesterday, Tuesday 22 March, was World Water day, and also the day that the ZIWA Swinging Sixties group visited the UN offices in Geneva. We numbered over 40 ladies in our reserved seats on the 8.03 train from Zurich, and several others joined us at our destination. Experienced chairlady Vreni Riedler once again managed this feat of organisation. The ladies enjoyed the chance to catch up with friends old and new on the train journey.

The flags of the member nations

In Geneva we took a bus to Appia and walked along from there to the UN HQ buildings. Security was in operation and we went through airport-style X-ray checks for ourselves and our bags. At the same time, we were getting word of the terrible terrorist attacks in Brussels, which was very sad. However, once inside the UN building, we were greeted by three guides, and Vreni took charge over the division into two English-speaking and one German-speaking groups. The three groups took slightly different routes through the Palais des Nations and heard different comments.


The UN Organisation

Our ZIWA ladies of several nations

Our guide, Ji, took us upstairs to inspect the board listing all the organisational components of the UN.  We learnt that the General Assembly meets on the second Tuesday in September when each member is allowed to speak for 15 minutes. The UN currently comprises 193 full voting members of the General Assembly and two observers: the state of Palestine is hoping to join, and the Vatican City wishes merely to watch. We saw an image of the 195 flags. The GA votes on topics such as security and the budget, and a two thirds majority is required. The Security Council has five permanent and ten elected members for each two-year term.  They are responsible for peace-keeping missions in the event of conflict - surely an ongoing requirement. Currently the Secretary General is Ban Ki-moon, who is due to step down shortly, and he was preceded by Kofi Annan, who also stood for a nine year term.

Room XX, the Hall of Human Rights

Other branches of the UN organisation include the Secretariat, the Trusteeship Council and the Economic and Social Council. The International Court of Justice is located in the Hague. The UN functions in six languages - English, Chinese, Spanish, Russian, French and Arabic, but the day-to-day working languages in Geneva are English and French.

See more about the organisation structure at this link: http://www.un.org/en/about-un/index.html.

The UN family also includes special agencies such as the International Labor Organisation, the Food and Agriculture Organisation, UNESCO, Unicef, the World Health Organisation, the World Bank and several others who all have their own budget. UN offices are located in New York, Geneva, Nairobi and Vienna.

The Hall of Human Rights and the exhibition hall

Our Chinese guide Ji led us over the bridge from new to old

After the introduction to the UN organisation, we looked into the Hall of Human Rights and Alliance of Civilizations Room where informal conversations were taking place. All formal meetings here are filmed live. It is possible to take a seat in a meeting by reserving in advance.

The art exhibition was impressive

Then we crossed from the new building, over a bridge with views of the grounds, to a large marbled hall known as The Hall of Lost Footsteps. This imposing room featured an exhibition of art works submitted by the member nations. On World Water Day we saw huge paintings, quilts and collages relating to water and other subjects. The old part of the building was founded in 1946 when there were 51 member states. There is a ceiling sculpture by the Spanish artists Miquel Barcelo and was a gift from the Spanish nation.


Room 18 Conference Room

Our third stop was to view a conference centre from the balcony behind a glass screen. We heard something about the organisation of meetings held in Geneva in several small conference rooms with a similar layout. When conferences between warring nations take place, it can be difficult to arrange the seating. In the past, Geneva has hosted meetings of the Afghanistan peace talks, El Salvador, Egypt and former Yugoslavia, as well as meetings involving Iran and Iraq, India and Pakistan and North and South Korea, for example. The member states sit in the front rows and behind them may sit their guests. Geneva employs many translators, some of whom work for the member states and some for the UN itself.

A view into the conference room

The UN budget is based on Gross National Product of its members. The US is the largest with 22 percent of the contribution, while the smallest member pays 0.004 percent. Special projects also have an ad hoc budget allocation. We noticed that the UN building is still relatively low-tech compared to modern high-tech companies.

Cafe de Paris Chez Boubiez
See this link: Chez Boubier

After the three stops on our tour, we met the other groups in the foyer, and after a brief visit to the gift shop, we took the bus 8 back to Cornavin station. From there it was a few steps to the well-known and traditional Cafe de Paris Chez Boubier. We managed to squeeze in all 48 ZIWA ladies for a lunch of the signature, and only, dish of entrecôte of beef accompanied by a sizzling butter sauce, along with French fries and a green salad. By now we were all very thirsty and starving after our busy morning. Thanks again to Vreni for putting it all together.

Julia Newton, 23 March 2016

Visiting Jura World of Coffee

http://www.juraworld.com/

On Thursday 23 April 2015, ZIWA's Swinging Sixties group took a train journey into Canton Solothurn to visit the new Jura World of Coffee. We could almost smell the coffee as we got off the train in Oberbuchsiten and walked across a country field to the splendid, newly-appointed visitor centre. Our visit was master-minded as usual by chairlady Vreni Riedler, who had everything under control.

The art of coffee tasting

At the impressive exhibition centre, we were welcomed by our chief guide, Kristin Seidler, and we enjoyed a welcome cup of coffee and a gipfeli in the coffee lounge. Then we split up into two groups, one English-speaking and one German-speaking. The English group went first for a coffee tasting, led by Claudette who had laid out a counter with individual places for us to cleanse our palates before tasting two brands of coffee. We heard about the four taste types - sweet, sour, salty and bitter, and the many more aromas, around 10,000, which can be discerned by the nose.We sipped water flavoured with nutmeg and clove, and then we discovered that while holding our nose, it was harder to discern the identity of two more sample tastes, which turned out to be sugar and cinnamon. We also noted the different textures on the tongue of still and sparkling waters and creamy milk. After training our nose and mouth, we then tried the smell and taste of two different coffees, which came from the coffee machine with a deep head of foam or crema. Our first sample was Malabar Monsooned Indian coffee which had low acidity and tasted bitter and earthy. The second sample originated from San Antonio, Honduras and appeared darker but tasted less strong than the Indian coffee. Both types were one hundred percent Arabica beans.


Then we tried another taste test, this time sampling drinks of almond-flavoured amaretto and grape juice, both with distinctive flavours, but when mixed together, resulted in a new cherry flavour. We also learnt that the optimum water temperature for making espresso coffee is 65-68 degrees C. No more boiling water then, as I tend to prefer.

The history of coffee

The second part of the Jura coffee experience was an interactive tour through the history of coffee, leading us through a series of rooms with lighting and sound exhibits. Coffee had its origins in 9th century Ethiopia, when legend has it that a goatherd discovered that his goats became excitable when chewing the red coffee beans, which were made into a pulp and then a drink by a local monk.  The beans were, and still are, hand picked and dried in the sun before being roasted. Coffee is the world's second most important commodity after oil. The drink was then established in popularity in the Arabian peninsula in around 1100 and was sold in the souks.

At the end of the 16th century, Europeans brought the coffee trade to Venice. In 1578, German botanist Leonhard Rauwolf was the first European to bring the taste of coffee to Europe, where it soon became very popular as a drink. In 1615, the famous Cafe Florian was opened in Venice and helped to popularise the drink as a stimulant. Attempts by the Dutch to grow coffee failed however, so coffee plantations were established in the French colonies in Central America, where its cultivation was successful. The first coffee house opened in Vienna in 1683; later the idea caught on in London too. The Boston Tea Party in 1773 was the trigger for the Americans to develop a craze for coffee and they are now the world's biggest consumers.

In the 1930s, Leo Henzirohs, an inventor from Solothurn, developed the world's first electric coffee pot, and the Jura company has gone on to manufacture the ever more sophisticated coffee machines that we have today.

In heaven

After the fascinating history lesson, we watched a film entitled In Heaven, showing the popularity of coffee drinking all round the world. We also discovered that we could buy a variety of coffee beans and the latest in Jura coffee machines in the product shops. And as a final touch, we could meet brand ambassador Roger Federer and even have a photo taken with the great man in his walk of fame. Several people were keen to get in the picture with Roger.

After the eye-opening coffee tour, we walked to nearby Gasthof Sonne for a pre-ordered set lunch and a chance to relive the coffee experience with friends, before making the journey back to Zurich by bus and train. A big thanks goes to Vreni for another great day out.

Julia Newton, 25 April 2015.

Zurich Observatory tour and dinner

On Wednesday 5 November, members of the ZIWA Swinging Sixties group, a large number of ladies, congregated in The Lion bar for a drink prior to a tour of Zurich's Sternwarte or Observatory. You may have often noticed this landmark in Uraniastrasse, and may even have visited the lofty Jules Verne bar, but we discovered a viewing gallery even higher up. Access is possible by lift to the bar and then by a staircase. The 360-degree view on this night was spectacular.

Our guide, Herr Weil, told us about the founding of the observatory in 1907 for the people of the city of Zurich. The 12 tonne steel telescope is housed on a concrete stand which is set into the earth. The telescope rotates to enable a view of the night sky towards the geographic north and Polaris. We were already impressed by the views over the city with its famous churches - the Grossmunster, Fraumunster and St Peter's for example, as well as many other familiar landmarks. In spite of the light pollution, the Zeiss-made telescope lens enables a view of the night sky through two panels which open. The refracting, colour-correcting lens has a magnifying power of 2500 times that of the human eye.

Herr Weil gave us an astronomy lesson about the solar system, the planets and the stars. Closest to earth is our moon, one of over 172 moons in the solar system.  The American Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) which was launched in 2009, is constantly taking photos of the moon and plots its varying distance from the earth during its orbit. Light from the sun takes 8 minutes to reach the earth. We were reminded always to use filters when observing the sun, though. A partial solar eclipse is expected on 22 March 2015.

We also learnt that the eight planets, excluding Pluto, all lie in the same plane, along with the asteroid belt. The sun was formed out of a cloud of hydrogen and dust particles and is 10 million degrees inside. Scientists predict that our sun will die in five billion years' time and become a white dwarf. Comets are formed from ice and snow, and the European (ESA) Rosetta project is planning to land a probe on one on 12 November 2014. The stars are 9.5 billion kilometers away, more than four light years. With our current technology we cannot contact other life forms as the time to reach them, if they existed, would be too great. There are 88 constellations of stars  in our galaxy, many of which we can view with the naked eye. Some of the most familiar are Orion, the Great Bear, Cassiopeia and those named after the signs of the zodiac.

You can visit the Observatory on Thursday, Friday, and Saturday evenings from 20.00 without an appointment. See more at this link: http://www.urania-sternwarte.ch/




After the fascinating tour, group chairlady Vreni Riedler led us over the historic Lindenhof to the traditional Lindenhofkeller for a pre-arranged four course dinner. Our hosts introduced the two selected wines from a French vineyard near Perpignan, before serving us with an amuse-bouche prior to the delicious dinner.


We enjoyed Zander filet in filo pastry with beetroot, apple and horseradish salad, a small pumpkin soup topped with foam, black Angus steak, beautifully served, with roast potatoes and vegetables, and finally a tonka bean panna cotta with mango sorbet and mango and passion fruit compote. It was all beautifully presented and cooked, and the company as usual was also very pleasant.

Read more about the restaurant at this link: http://www.lindenhofkeller.ch/

 En guete!

Underground at Zürich HB with Candrian Catering

The ZIWA Swinging Sixties group delves into the world of mass catering

Tuesday 25 February 2014

Zürich Hauptbahnhof’s catering service is the largest covered operation in Europe. This fact and many others came to light on yesterday’s tour arranged by Vreni and her popular ZIWA Interest Group. You didn't need to be 60 to participate, and 30 people turned up to discover this underground world, unremarked by most of the passengers who pass through the station every day. There were two groups, one English-speaking and one German-speaking, who assembled at the meeting point to discover more. Our guide was Patrick, the Operations Manager from the firm Candrian Catering, who also run several establishments in the city and in Basel.

Starting off in the Federal Brasserie, we learnt that this was one of the three original bars established in the HB in 1924. At that time there were three classes of traveller, and hence the restaurants Au Premier, Da Capo and Federal provided first, second and third class food and service. In 1924, a soup cost 20 rappen and a full menu cost 1 franc 20. The Federal now serves over 100 Swiss beers, many of them such as Ittinger now owned by the Dutch brewing giant Heineken. Candrian Catering also works with the Nordsee and Burger King franchises that have outlets in the station.

Did you know that Zürich HB has a staff restaurant with 400 seats, which serves the 1600 catering and SBB staff who work at the station? The entrance is on the first floor opposite the Landesmuseum if you want to try it out for yourself! On the other hand, Candrian also do the catering for the Zürich HB Oktoberfest, and their biggest day of the year is the Street Parade, when the clean-up operation may take a week. Zürich HB’s underground world contains the kitchens which produce the food for all 42 restaurants and cafes above ground, including sandwiches for the kiosks. A single ordering system optimises the cost benefits.

As we were led around the underground maze, we saw the beer and wine stores, replenished daily, the soft drinks storage, and the dry goods store including 600kg. of coffee per week. There are 65 nationalities working at the HB catering, and 80 percent of staff are foreigners. Also in the twilight world we saw the laundry service which deals with staff uniforms, the trucks delivering products all over the station and the people dealing with cleaning and recycling.

Candrian Catering has seven new restaurants opening this year, including – breaking news! – a new sushi bar in the main station called Sora Sushi and an Asian garden lounge; look out for them in the summer 2014. Another trendsetter is the supply of popular new beer Chopfab, which means ‘headless’ in dialect.

As we toured through the kitchens, we were surprised not to see much activity, as the catering staff all go to lunch upstairs at 11.30. We saw the butchery where 25,000 sausages are made every week, the pasta kitchen, the fish kitchen and smoking room for the salmon, and the vegetarian food chefs for the Bona Dea restaurant. Most of the food, apart from a freshly cooked steak, is prepared below ground  before being sent upstairs to the appropriate restaurant for final preparation and service.  There are also a bakery and patisserie where all the station’s bread products (apart from Laugenbrot* and bagels) and desserts are produced.


 After our 2 hour long tour, we adjourned into the light of day at the fine dining Da Capo restaurant for our choice of two three-course menus served with water and coffee: drinks were extra, but good value for CHF70 for the whole experience. Thanks to Vreni and our two Candrian Catering guides for hosting us. I can still smell the coffee!

Julia Newton, 26 February 2014

*PS What is Laugenbrot? You may be familiar with the distinctive brown-topped bread rolls as well as the Silserbrot and Bretzels. They are processed using the product Lye, an alkaline solution similar to baking soda.