The forecast was for rain today for our departure from Colmar, however we can’t really complain as we haven’t experienced rain since Paris. It was a little sad saying goodbye to this lovely French village, with beautiful houses, delicious pastries, melodic church bells, friendly people, and our spacious apartment.

We encountered driving rain as we crossed the border into Switzerland. The car in front of us was hauled over for questioning by the Swiss police, however we were just waved through – maybe the Swiss registration plates on the hire car did the trick? We filled up for diesel just past Basel, however unfortunately we couldn’t find a service station on the (presumably) cheaper French side.

After the (reasonably) friendly French, we weren’t accustomed to the attendant’s attitude at the service station. After ignoring Amelia when she stood right in front of counter for 30 seconds, Mil had to cough loudly just to get the Frauline’s attention. The old battle axe then rolled her eyes when Mil asked her to open the toilet door (all that was required was for her to push one button right next to her). She gave me the most forced smile when I paid for the diesel, and then grimaced when I asked her to reopen the toilet door to let Oscar in.

We had planned to go direct from Colmar to Schaffhausen in the north east of Switzerland to see the Rhine waterfalls – the largest in Europe. It was to be an extra 40 minute drive from Zurich, not that long considering we had half a day to fill in. We called Europcar to see if there was any issue with dropping the car back an hour and a half after the 1pm scheduled drop off time, however the snotty operator said that we were already late, as the drop off time was actually 11.30am, as that was the time we picked the car up originally in Geneva.

Rhinefall plans abandoned, we changed the GPS setting to go direct to the Hotel Allegra, our one bedroom budget hotel next to the airport. Battling road works and a major traffic jam, we finally arrived at the hotel, checked in, dumped our cases, hopped back in the car, and crawled the short distance to Europcar Downtown Zurich. The same snooty operator gave me a brief look, checked the car, told me that as everything was in order and the tank full of petrol – we were free to go.

Relieved that we didn’t incur any further charges, we set about exploring Switzerland’s largest city. At first in the “downtown” section it was quite ugly with unattractive buildings, graffiti, litter and just a dirty feel about it. However as we made our way towards the old part of town, we grew to appreciate Zurich a little more, a city of 1.3 million people, with lots of bikes, a number of trams, a lovely lake and mountains in the background.

Walking slowly through the cobblestone streets, we made our way to the GrossMunster – one of the four large churches in Zurich. Built in 1100, it is a Romanesque style Protestant church, with twin towers, and yes, one was open for climbing! After purchasing some Swiss francs (they wouldn’t accept credit), we commenced climbing the stone circular stairway. We’ve climbed some pretty narrow staircases before, but this one beats them all. Over steps worn down by centuries of footsteps, we slowly made our way up, pausing completely at various times when others wanted to pass us coming down. The tower was claustrophobic as it was, however having overweight tourists trying to squeeze past us was very difficult, involving lots of breath holding, tummy squeezing and balancing on a sliver of stone step – the step obviously narrows to nothing as it nears the centre of the spiral.

Thankfully only the first half of the climb was via the stone spiral. The rest consisted of more recent wooden steps, at a much wider width, were passing wasn’t so difficult. Again the view at the top made the climb worthwhile, although the viewing platform was quite narrow and we had to dodge the dreaded selfie stick to get a decent position to view the city’s landmarks.

Eventually we made our way down, and after browsing some more shops we did our last ice-cream stop for the trip, and then considered dinner.

Zurich always makes it into the top few most expensive cities of the world, and when trying to find a place to eat, we realised how true those lists are. We half-heartedly looked at a couple of restaurants, before settling for Maccas as a special treat for the kids. Even so, Maccas was very expensive, with a small Big Mac Meal costing 11.70 Swiss Francs (around AUD$16). Not content with Maccas, I bought a souvlaki from a shop next door that only cost me 9.50 Swiss Francs. After downing the greasy meal, we took the short walk to the huge Zurich station (housing both suburban and region lines) and trained the five stops to Kloten, which is one minute from our hotel.

It took the kids a while to get to sleep, as we were all sharing the one room, however the hotel was clean and modern, and it provided a free shuttle to the airport. Last day of our trip completed - we've had loads of fun and are sorry to leave, however we're also now ready for a return to our normal lives.