Switzerland Guide
Zürich
Zürich West
For a clean break from the sometimes overly packaged Zürich of cobbled alleys, medieval guildhalls and glitzy shopping, you need to head west. The new home of the city's underground is the residential and post-industrial area comprising the postal districts of 8004 (Kreis 4) and 8005 (Kreis 5), together known as Zürich West.
The north– south artery of Langstrasse is where the daily dramas are played out, a seedy but absorbing mile-long strip of designer bars, videogame parlours, independent cinemas, clubwear outlets and cheap eateries. Trams #2 or #3 to Bezirksgebäude deliver you to the respectable southern end of Langstrasse around Helvetiaplatz. Strolling north, the street narrows and the mood changes: this was once Zürich's red-light district, and although some of the unpleasantness survives (there's still a fair spread of sex cinemas and prostitution), the worst of the vice trade has moved on. In its place has developed a downmarket ethnic and social mix that is a universe away from the homogeneous collection of expensive suits and fur coats parading the Bahnhofstrasse not a kilometre east: lowlife bars rub shoulders with avant-garde galleries, smells of greasy kebabs mix with wood-fired pizza and aromatic marijuana, and the whole street is a mingle of Swiss-German voices with French-African, Portuguese, Turkish, Balkan, Latin American, Haitian and more.
Two-thirds of the way along, Langstrasse dips beneath the train tracks; the style north of the underpass is different again, with residential side-streets increasingly attracting artists and creative types who have, in turn, spawned plenty of hip bars, high-quality restaurants and designer boutiques on and off the stretch leading to the major Limmatplatz junction (served by trams #4 and #13).