ZUR and ZNZ

Posted on by cassmob

My 2025 A to Z theme is Airports, Airstrips, Aircraft, and Airlines I’ve known and flown with. I’ll be using IATA codes where they’re available. My inner travel agent emerges at this point as I’m the FTO (family
travel organiser) and now, the online travel agent.

ZUR     Flughafen Zürich, Zürich, Switzerland

Even if I remembered this airport, it is likely that it’s now completely different. I had made it my stop-over en route to Ireland in 1995 to meet eldest daughter. One of my Irish friends at the time was amused that only an Aussie would treat it as a stop-over….it seemed sensible enough to me.  Actually, it wasn’t that I planned to stay in Zürich, rather that I wanted to visit Lucerne again as it was somewhere we’d visited a few times and really enjoyed. What I do remember is nearly going to sleep on the train to Lucerne – probably not having slept much in flight.

Hot chocolate in the square at Lucerne. So beautiful.
P Cass 1995
Lucerne 1995.
Do you like hot chestnuts? I’m not a fan.

I did thoroughly enjoy re-visiting places I’d loved in the town and then sitting at an outdoor café drinking a hot chocolate (Swiss, of course!) I also took myself off to Bern one day for a visit as we’d never been there and I wanted to see the bears for which it’s famous. In my photo album I described it as a city with attitude. No idea why now.

Bern, P Cass 1995

I flew with Cathay Pacific on this trip and had a short time in Hong Kong before my next flight. I do know I was close to my luggage limit on the way home as I was bringing some of my daughter’s belongings back with me.

Cathay Pacific took me there and back.

ZNZ     Abeid Amani Karume International Airport, Zanzibar, Tanzania, Africa

We were so excited to be visiting Zanzibar with our two eldest daughters in 2013 after going on safari with them. The advantage of having a daughter living in Nairobi was that we had good tips on where to go and where to stay.

I made it in!

Also exciting, but not in a good way, was my reason for remembering more about this airport. When we checked in at Nairobi for the flight, I realised I’d made a massive mistake and left my vaccination record in my daughter’s safe. There may have been some tears – it was a “tiny” bit critical since Zanzibar requires you to have had yellow fever vaccination before you can enter. In an achievement for technology, I was able to ring my doctor in Darwin and get a full copy sent to me via email before we boarded the plane. A good thing too, since as we came to the arrival gates it was the first thing requested before we could enter. Whew!

The view from our wonderful hotel in Stonetown, Zanzibar.
P Cass 2013

The drama passed, we were all able to enjoy our time checking out Stonetown, the capital, for a few days, before going to Ras Nugwi on the north-east coast for some leisurely post-safari relaxation by the sea. One memory that stays with me is the Nairobi daughter expanding her Swahili skills talking to the man on the bar.

The music of the Shiva temple was heard from our bedroom window.

I wrote about our Zanzibar trip on my Special Memories series for A to Z in 2022 and you can see collages of photos there . Also on my TroppoNT blog here, and the history of slavery in Zanzibar here.

Just one of the amazing views from Ras Nungwi. Sadly, this complex burned down a few years ago. P Cass 2013

On our way home, the airport also provided us with another experience as we had to pay a levy (maybe $US10) to the check-in person that almost certainly a bribe of sorts. The American tourist nearby refused to pay – I wonder whether he saw his luggage again.

And for light relief, a laugh, a farewell photo of the travellers bedecked with costuming at the Spice Farm en route to Ras Nungwi.

Kwaheri from Zanzibar and this journey.

Have you visited either Switzerland or Zanzibar? What did you enjoy most?

If the opportunity presented which country in the world would you most like to visit, either for the first time, or again?

Thank you for travelling along with me through this year’s A to Z. It’s been like having good company on a journey.

33 thoughts on “ZUR and ZNZ”

    1. Thank you for joining me on the journey. I can say with confidence that you will love Switzerland -it has such amazing scenery – and chocolate 😉

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  3. you ask the most tantalising questions! I haven’t been to Africa but did visit Switzerland, staying in Lucerne on a whirlwind tour. The trip up the mountain in the snow by train and back by gondolier was breathtaking. As for where I would like to go next…I’m still sad about the cancelled trip to Sicily and Croatia (thanks to Covid) which I had planned in great detail. I’m not sure if we could face those long haul flights now and I’m still not prepared to pay for Business class.

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    1. I recognise that flight conundrum…maybe Premium Economy as a compromise. Covid threw us all off our game I think. Luckily we’d just got back from India as it was beginning, and that had been our 50th anniversary holiday. I can understand and sympathise with missing Sicily and Croatia. Maybe do a shorter version?

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    2. I didn’t say we did that trip up the mountain on our first trip and loved it, though the gondola doesn’t sit well with my fear of heights. I solved that by looking through the camera lens 🙂 The views aware spectacular though.

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      1. She’s director of an artist retreat in the Georgia Blue Ridge mountains. A woman who had had a residency there was from Tanzania and her mother had a house she wanted to offer as a place an artist could use for a residency. My daughter went with the artist from Zanzibar to check it out and see if it could work. The job financed the trip. Not sure what was decided, but she enjoyed the trip

        She just returned from a week long visit to Panama with a group of artists. They visited local artists and museums and the canal. Her children’s other grandmother is Panamanian/Jamaican and she saw the area she where she was born etc

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      2. That’s really interesting about her artist retreat and the one in Tanzania. I wonder what they decided.
        It must have been so insightful to see where the other grandmother came from, as well as the artistic explorations.

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      3. She says they do want to offer it but they need to raise funds to cover some of the costs for people. And in the present climate over here, that probably won’t be as easy as it used to be.

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  5. It’s a yes for Zurich-ZUR and a no for ZNZ although we had a day visit to Stonetown from a cruise ship in Zanzibar – it was just an overview of significant sights and a market visit.

    Pauleen, thank you so much for your unique topic. I enjoyed travelling virtually with you and your family. You dredged up many memories of our travels, sent my diving into our family archives and ignited my interest into travelling to some new to me places in the future. I can see taking photos of airports in my future.

    I am so pleased you made that decision to join the challenge at the last minute, reading your posts was a feature of my April days.

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    1. A day in Zanzibar would have been fun but we enjoyed chilling out and taking our time, and even more so at Ras Nungwi.

      Thanks so much for your very kind words. Look forward to seeing some airport photos 🙂

      I thoroughly enjoyed my daily tour of quirky photos and have been looking at some of mine as I’ve been down my photos rabbit hole.

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  6. I spent a lovely 3 days in Lucerne with my daughter when she was living in London. Well done on getting to the end of the AtoZs. I’ve loved reading your posts as they have brought up many memories for me.

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    1. I’m glad you enjoyed them Jennifer as I did with the Earl Grey orphans.
      Isn’t Lucerne lovely? We’ve been there a few times but not for decades. I’m sure you’d have had a lovely time with your daughter.

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  7. Great pictures. Good thing you could get your documentation and get in!
    I hope you’re enjoying the A to Z Challenge. Please check out the giveaway on my blog.

    J Lenni Dorner (he/him 👨🏽 or 🧑🏽 they/them) ~ Speculative Fiction & Reference Author and Co-host of the April Blogging #AtoZchallenge

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  9. My partner has a niece in Zurich and if I ever visited, I would love to meet for a coffee with Tamara of Part-time Working Hockey Mom…

    The country I would love to visit is Japan because their country is beautiful and their culture so different…

    I have enjoyed your travels very much!

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    1. Thanks so much. Zurich is just a hop away for you…invite yourself over 🙂 We had planned for Japan last year, and booked, but health intervened. It does look amazing.

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  10. This has been a fantastic series, thanks for sharing your travels and stories. So many airports so many places, you’ve done well to remember them and even have photos for all the countries. Given you joined in at the last minute it was a fabulous virtual trip around the world.

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