Paradeplatz
The square of Swiss banking, with Sprüngli since 1859.
KeanoManu — CC BY-SA 4.0 · sidonius 20:44, 7 June 2006 (UTC) — Public domain · Roland zh — CC BY-SA 3.0 · Roland zh — CC BY-SA 3.0
For buying: usually not. The same luxury labels are available in the Gulf at similar or lower prices, and prices here are among Europe's highest. What is genuinely worth buying is what is made locally: chocolate from Sprüngli or Läderach, Victorinox knives, and watches if you are serious about it (ask about the VAT refund). For walking, looking and photographing: absolutely worth it, especially in the evening and in December.
Late afternoon: the shops are still open, the light rakes across the façades, and the street delivers you to Bürkliplatz and the lake at sunset, which is the best possible ending. Avoid Saturday morning, the busiest slot of the week. In December, walk it after dark for the Lucy lights. On Sunday the street is quiet and pleasant to walk, but everything is shut.
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Zurich's main street: 1.4 kilometres running from the square in front of the central station south to **Bürkliplatz** on the lakeshore. It exists because the city pulled down its fortifications in the 1860s and filled in the moat known as the "frogs' ditch"; a street took its place, open to traffic from the station to Paradeplatz in 1865 and carried through to the lake by the early 1880s. Today it is one of the most expensive retail streets in the world — not tourist-brochure flattery, but a matter of rents. About halfway along lies **Paradeplatz**, the square of the big Swiss banks, and on it the confectioner Sprüngli, which has stood on this spot since 1859; its small *Luxemburgerli* are practically the only reasonably priced thing on the whole street. In December the **"Lucy"** lights hang above it: thousands of crystals strung over a kilometre, switched on in the third week of November and left up until early January. Be realistic about it: most of the shops are international luxury labels you will find in Dubai, Doha or Paris at the same prices or less, and little about them is Swiss. The street's value is the walk itself — trams run down the middle, cars are excluded from most of it, and it delivers you to the water with mountains on the horizon. For practical shopping, use the department stores at the station end, or the lanes of **Niederdorf** across the river.
The square of Swiss banking, with Sprüngli since 1859.
Thousands of crystals over the street, November to January.
The street sits on the filled-in moat of the old city wall.
Bahnhofstrasse, 8001 Zurich