• 001 - the logo.jpg
  • 002 - Hiroshima sunset.jpg
  • 003 - Auschwitz-Birkenau ramp.jpg
  • 004 - Chernobyl contamination.jpg
  • 005 - Darvaza flaming gas crater.jpg
  • 006 - Berlin Wall madness.jpg
  • 007 - Bulgaria - monument at the bottom of Buzludzhy park hill.jpg
  • 008 - Ijen crater.jpg
  • 009 - Aralsk, Kazakhstan.jpg
  • 010 - Paris catacombs.jpg
  • 011 - Krakatoa.jpg
  • 012 - Ho Chi Minh mausoleum, Hanoi.jpg
  • 013 - Uyuni.jpg
  • 014 - DMZ Vietnam.jpg
  • 015 - Colditz Kopie.jpg
  • 016 - Glasgow Necropolis.jpg
  • 017 - Hashima ghost island.jpg
  • 018 - Kazakhstan.jpg
  • 019 - Arlington.jpg
  • 020 - Karosta prison.jpg
  • 021 - Kamikaze.jpg
  • 022 - Chacabuco ghost town.jpg
  • 023 - Eagle's Nest, Obersalzberg, Berchtesgaden.jpg
  • 024 - Kursk.jpg
  • 025 - Bran castle, Carpathia, Romania.jpg
  • 026 - Bestattungsmuseum Wien.jpg
  • 027 - Pripyat near Chernobyl.jpg
  • 028 - Sedlec ossuary, Czech Republic.jpg
  • 029 - Pyramida Lenin.jpg
  • 030 - Falklands.jpg
  • 031 - Majdanek.jpg
  • 032 - Soufriere volcano, Montserrat.jpg
  • 033 - moai on Easter Island.jpg
  • 034 - Sidoarjo.jpg
  • 035 - Hötensleben.jpg
  • 036 - Natzweiler.jpg
  • 037 - Polygon, Semipalatinsk test site, Kazakhstan.jpg
  • 038 - Srebrenica.jpg
  • 039 - Liepaja, Latvia.jpg
  • 040 - Vemork hydroelectric power plant building, Norway.jpg
  • 041 - Enola Gay.jpg
  • 042 - Pentagon 9-11 memorial.jpg
  • 043 - Robben Island prison, South Africa.jpg
  • 044 - Tollund man.jpg
  • 045 - Marienthal tunnel.jpg
  • 046 - Aso, Japan.jpg
  • 047 - Labrador battery Singapore.jpg
  • 048 - Artyom island, Absheron, Azerbaijan.jpg
  • 049 - Treblinka.jpg
  • 050 - Titan II silo.jpg
  • 051 - dosemetering doll, Chernobyl.jpg
  • 052 - Holocaust memorial, Berlin.jpg
  • 053 - Komodo dragon.jpg
  • 054 - cemeterio general, Santiago de Chile.jpg
  • 055 - Tuol Sleng, Phnom Phen, Cambodia.jpg
  • 056 - West Virginia penitentiary.jpg
  • 057 - ovens, Dachau.jpg
  • 058 - Derry, Northern Ireland.jpg
  • 059 - Bulgaria - Buzludzha - workers of all countries unite.jpg
  • 060 - Sachsenhausen.jpg
  • 061 - Tiraspol dom sovietov.jpg
  • 062 - modern-day Pompeii - Plymouth, Montserrat.jpg
  • 063 - Pico de Fogo.jpg
  • 064 - Trinity Day.jpg
  • 065 - Zwentendorf control room.jpg
  • 066 - Wolfschanze.jpg
  • 067 - Hiroshima by night.jpg
  • 068 - mass games, North Korea.jpg
  • 069 - Harrisburg.jpg
  • 070 - Nuremberg.jpg
  • 071 - Mostar.jpg
  • 072 - Tu-22, Riga aviation museum.jpg
  • 073 - Gallipoli, Lone Pine.jpg
  • 074 - Auschwitz-Birkenau - fence.jpg
  • 075 - Darvaza flaming gas crater.jpg
  • 076 - Atatürk Mausoleum, Ankara.jpg
  • 077 - Banda Aceh boats.jpg
  • 078 - AMARG.jpg
  • 079 - Chacabuco ruins.jpg
  • 080 - Bucharest.jpg
  • 081 - Bernauer Straße.jpg
  • 082 - Death Railway, Thailand.jpg
  • 083 - Mandor killing fields.jpg
  • 084 - Kozloduy.jpg
  • 085 - Jerusalem.jpg
  • 086 - Latin Bridge, Sarajevo.jpg
  • 087 - Panmunjom, DMZ, Korea.jpg
  • 088 - Ijen blue flames.jpg
  • 089 - Derry reconsilliation monument.jpg
  • 090 - Ebensee.jpg
  • 091 - Mödlareuth barbed wire.jpg
  • 092 - skull heaps in Sedlec ossuary, Czech Republic.jpg
  • 093 - Nikel.jpg
  • 094 - Fukushima-Daiichi NPP.jpg
  • 095 - Tital launch control centre.jpg
  • 096 - Dallas Dealy Plaza and Sixth Floor Museum.jpg
  • 097 - Auschwitz I.jpg
  • 098 - Stalin and Lenin, Tirana, Albania.jpg
  • 099 - Malta, Fort St Elmo.jpg
  • 100 - Peenemünde.jpg
  • 101 - Tarrafal.jpg
  • 102 - Kilmainham prison, Dublin.jpg
  • 103 - North Korea.jpg
  • 104 - Mittelbau-Dora.jpg
  • 105 - St Helena.jpg
  • 106 - Stutthof, Poland.jpg
  • 107 - Merapi destruction.jpg
  • 108 - Chueung Ek killing fields, Cambodia.jpg
  • 109 - Marienborn former GDR border.jpg
  • 110 - Mig and star, Kazakhstan.jpg
  • 111 - Nagasaki WWII tunnels.jpg
  • 112 - Hellfire Pass, Thailand.jpg
  • 113 - Kiev.jpg
  • 114 - Grutas Park, Lithuania.jpg
  • 115 - Zwentendorf reactor core.jpg
  • 116 - two occupations, Tallinn.jpg
  • 117 - Trunyan burial site.jpg
  • 118 - Ushuaia prison.jpg
  • 119 - Buchenwald.jpg
  • 120 - Marienthal with ghost.jpg
  • 121 - Murmansk harbour - with an aircraft carrier.jpg
  • 122 - Berlin Olympiastadion.JPG
  • 123 - Bastille Day, Paris.jpg
  • 124 - Spassk.jpg
  • 125 - Theresienstadt.jpg
  • 126 - B-52s.jpg
  • 127 - Bledug Kuwu.jpg
  • 128 - Friedhof der Namenlosen, Vienna.jpg
  • 129 - Auschwitz-Birkenau barracks.jpg
  • 130 - mummies, Bolivia.jpg
  • 131 - Barringer meteor crater.jpg
  • 132 - Murambi, Rwanda.jpg
  • 133 - NTS.jpg
  • 134 - Mauthausen Soviet monument.jpg
  • 135 - pullution, Kazakhstan.JPG
  • 136 - palm oil madness.jpg
  • 137 - Berlin socialist realism.jpg
  • 138 - Okawa school building ruin.jpg
  • 139 - Pawiak, Warsaw.jpg
  • 140 - flying death, military museum Dresden.JPG
  • 141 - KGB gear.JPG
  • 142 - KZ jacket.JPG
  • 143 - ex-USSR.JPG
  • 144 - Indonesia fruit bats.JPG
  • 145 - Alcatraz.JPG
  • 146 - Chernobyl Museum, Kiev, Ukraine.JPG
  • 147 - Halemaumau lava lake glow, Hawaii.JPG
  • 148 - Rosinenbomber at Tempelhof, Berlin.jpg
  • 149 - Verdun, France.JPG
  • 150 - hospital, Vukovar, Croatia.JPG
  • 151 - the original tomb of Napoleon, St Helena.JPG
  • 152 - Buchenwald, Germany.JPG
  • 153 - Bhopal.JPG
  • 154 - Groß-Rosen, Poland.jpg
  • 155 - at Monino, Russia.jpg
  • 156 - blinking Komodo.jpg
  • 157 - inside Chernobyl NPP.JPG
  • 158 - Mount St Helens, USA.JPG
  • 159 - Maly Trostenec, Minsk, Belarus.jpg
  • 160 - Vucedol skulls, Croatia.JPG
  • 161 - colourful WW1 shells.JPG
  • 162 - Zeljava airbase in Croatia.JPG
  • 163 - rusting wrecks, Chernobyl.JPG
  • 164 - San Bernadine alle Ossa, Milan, Italy.jpg
  • 165 - USS Arizona Memorial, Pearl Harbor, Hawaii.JPG
  • 166 - Brest Fortress, Belarus.JPG
  • 167 - thousands of bats, Dom Rep.JPG
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  • 169 - Perm-36 gulag site.JPG
  • 170 - Jasenovac, Croatia.JPG
  • 171 - Beelitz Heilstätten.JPG
  • 172 - Kremlin, Moscow.jpg
  • 173 - old arms factory, Dubnica.JPG
  • 174 - Pervomaisc ICBM base, more  missiles, including an SS-18 Satan.jpg
  • 175 - Cellular Jail, Port Blair.jpg
  • 177 - control room, Chernobyl NPP.JPG
  • 178 - Podgorica, Montenegro, small arms and light weapons sculpture.jpg
  • 179 - Vught.jpg
  • 180 - Japanese cave East Timor.jpg
  • 181 - Ani.jpg
  • 182 - Indonesia wildfire.jpg
  • 183 - Chacabuco big sky.jpg
  • 184 - Bunker Valentin, Germany.JPG
  • 185 - Lest we Forget, Ypres.JPG
  • 186 - the logo again.jpg

Zürich

    
 4Stars10px  - darkometer rating: 1 -
  
Zurich 6   the Swiss really love their clocksThe largest city in Switzerland (though not the capital – that’s Bern) and the country’s major economic and transport hub. From a dark-tourism perspective it’s less significant, but a couple of attractions make it worth spending a day or so in the city.
  
More background info: Zürich is an ancient place going back to before Roman times. It became part of the early Swiss confederacy in the Middle Ages and in 1848 part of the new federal state of what is modern Switzerland. Zürich is the capital of the canton of the same name. It was very briefly the federal capital too, in 1839/40, but has long since yielded that title to the smaller city of Bern further south-west.
  
From the mid-19th century Zürich grew, both through immigration during the industrial revolution and through the incorporation of surrounding communities. The city’s status as a transport hub began with the first Swiss railway line from Zürich in 1847, and the present grand Hauptbahnhof (main station) building dates back to 1871 and remains the biggest of its kind in the country to this day.
  
Waterway transport has also played an important role, both on Lake Zürich and on the Limmat River that flows out of it. Today, Zürich’s international airport is also the busiest in Switzerland. In addition to being a transport hub, Zürich is also major financial centre – as you would expect in a banking country like Switzerland.
  
Zürich has long ranked as one of the cities with the highest quality of living in the world, according to ranking lists by various magazines and the asset management firm Mercer (occasionally even topping such lists – against competitors such as Vienna, Vancouver, Copenhagen and Auckland).
  
However, this comes at a price, as the cost of living here is also very high. This is also why tourists find the city extremely expensive. Although: that does not apply across the board. Relatively affordable hotel accommodation can be found, for example, whereas eating and drinking out do indeed slash a traveller’s budget in Zürich fast – even more so than in much of the rest of Switzerland with its generally high price levels.
  
  
What there is to see: Not all that much from a dark-tourism perspective. But the following two places within Zürich warrant their own separate chapters here:
  
  
  
  
Other than those there isn’t much to see for the dedicated dark tourist. However, when I was there I felt obliged to make the pilgrimage to the grave of James Joyce in the Fluntern Cemetery to the east of the city centre near the zoo at the end of the No. 5 and 6 tram lines. Why did I feel obliged to visit this particular grave? It’s because my middle name is Ulysses, chosen by my father because of Joyce’s principal work of that title at a time when my Dad would treat that book almost like a personal bible. I’ve never actually managed to read that very modern novel in its entirety, but I still make my little pilgrimages when I’m in a place with a connection to James Joyce (see e.g. also Pula and Trieste).
  
  
Location: in the central northern part of Switzerland, so within the German-speaking part, at the northern end of the large lake called Zürichsee.
  
Google Maps locators:
  
James Joyce’s grave: [47.38348, 8.57065]
  
Main train station: [47.3781, 8.5399]
  
Cabaret Voltaire: [47.3716, 8.5439]
  
Lindenhof: [47.3731, 8.5413]
  
Rote Fabrik: [47.3436, 8.5363]
  
  
Access and costs: easy to get to; can be quite expensive
  
Details: Getting to Zürich is easy by train from all directions. If you’re coming from far away and have to fly to Zürich’s international airport, then you can get a train from there to the central station. Driving to and in Zürich in your own vehicle is not recommended because of the limited parking in the city centre.
  
Getting around is easy by tram and/or bus – if you have a Swiss Travel Pass, public transport in Zürich is included.
  
Accommodation options are plentiful, and around the central train station various comparatively affordable places can be found. But of course you can also splash out.
  
Eating out is inescapably quite expensive in Zürich, and having wine with dinner in a restaurant costs so much that it can bring tears to your eyes. It must be licensing taxes – because in the supermarkets bottles of wine aren’t that much more expensive than in neighbouring countries. But in hostelries you have to hold back and be careful.
  
  
Time required: For just the places specified here, a single day could be sufficient if you time it right (note the very limited opening times of the Moulagenmuseum!). But you may want to add another day or two for seeing some more of the city at a leisurely pace.
  
  
Combinations with other dark destinations: see under Switzerland.
  
   
Combinations with non-dark destinations: The old centre of Zürich has plenty of charm and is compact enough to be explorable on foot. This Old Town stretches along both banks of the Limmat River south of the central train station down to the shores of the Zürichsee lake. The narrow cobbled alleyways are a delight and in between there are four main churches of considerable antiquity (going back to the Middle Ages), with St Peter’s Church featuring the largest clock faces in the country on its tower (also fitting for a country so obsessed with watchmaking and clockmaking).
  
A superb spot for a good view over the city is the Lindenhof park high above the western banks of the river affording sweeping views over the eastern side of the Old Town.
  
Within the eastern Old Town you can find the reinstated Cabaret Voltaire art centre – which a century or so ago was one of the birthplaces of the Dada art movement.
  
Some attractions are further away from the centre and require public transport, such as the Le Corbusier House south of the centre on the eastern banks of the Zürichsee. More art can be found in the former industrial quarter to the north-west of the central station, such as the Migros Museum of Contemporary Art, the Kunsthalle Zürich and the design museum (Museum für Gestaltung).
  
The university quarter on the hillside to the east of the Old Town has more specialist museums in addition to the Moulagenmuseum, e.g. the Palaeontological Museum and the Zoological Museum. And to the south of this there is yet more art at the Kunsthaus Zürich.
  
An alternative art and cultural centre can be found on the western banks of the lake south of the centre in the form of the converted former factory “Rote Fabrik”.
  
 
 
  • Zurich 1 - Limat River and city centreZurich 1 - Limat River and city centre
  • Zurich 2 - view down from LindenhofZurich 2 - view down from Lindenhof
  • Zurich 3 - view down to the Limat River and the city hallZurich 3 - view down to the Limat River and the city hall
  • Zurich 4 - the lake and the operaZurich 4 - the lake and the opera
  • Zurich 5 - biggest clock face in the countryZurich 5 - biggest clock face in the country
  • Zurich 6 - the Swiss really love their clocksZurich 6 - the Swiss really love their clocks
  • Zurich 7 - Swiss flags galoreZurich 7 - Swiss flags galore
  • Zurich 8 - painted Uni buildingZurich 8 - painted Uni building
  • Zurich 9 - grave of James JoyceZurich 9 - grave of James Joyce
 
 
 
 
   

 

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