Warm glasshouses
An excellent refuge in rain or cold, at no cost.
Roland zh โ CC BY-SA 3.0 ยท roland zh โ CC BY-SA 3.0 ยท roland zh โ CC BY-SA 3.0 ยท roland zh โ CC BY-SA 3.0
Reasonably, and at zero cost: the forms really are strange โ plants that look like stones, cacti as tall as a person, unexpected spines and colours โ the route is short and indoors, and the visit is an hour. But it is not a zoo or a playground, and very young children may tire after half an hour. The practical rule: combine it with the lakeshore walk or the nearby Rietberg Museum to make a half-day in Enge.
The glasshouses are warm and open all year, so this works better in winter than most of Zurich's outdoor sights. If you want flowers, spring and early summer (April to June) is when many succulents bloom, and the houses turn colours you would not expect from desert plants. Note that it closes around half past four โ do not leave it to the end of the day.
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A municipal plant collection on the left shore of Lake Zurich in the Enge quarter, and one of the richest collections of succulents anywhere: **more than 4,400 species** from around eighty plant families, roughly 25,000 individual plants โ reckoned at between a third and a half of all known succulent species on earth, gathered in one place on a Swiss lakeshore. The story began with an amateur: a cactus grower named Jakob Gasser tried to sell his collection to the city of Zurich in the late 1920s and was refused, whereupon the department-store owner Julius Brann bought it in 1929 and gave it to the city two years later. The collection was formally founded in **1931**, and the present glasshouse complex was built in 1947 and opened in 1948. Today there are several greenhouses, heated frames and an outdoor rockery: Mexican cacti the size of a person, southern African plants disguised as pebbles, and the spiny scrub of Madagascar. The surprise is that **entry is entirely free, every day** โ in a city where almost everything costs. An hour is enough, and the houses are warm, which makes this an excellent refuge on a cold or wet day. It sits on the left-shore lakeside walk, about ten minutes uphill from the Rieterpark and the Rietberg Museum โ a combination that makes a pleasant half-day in Enge.
An excellent refuge in rain or cold, at no cost.
African species disguised as pebbles you barely notice.
Mexican forms the size of a person under glass.
Mythenquai 88, 8002 Zurich