Limmatschwimmen

There is a beautiful river that flows through the center of Zurich, right through Old Town, called the Limmat. From what I have heard, this river has a serious current and people aren't normally allowed to swim here. Very dangerous. But, once a year the waters are opened to the public for the Limmatschwimmen.

Josh and I went down to take pictures and to see exactly what this Limmatschwimmen entails. I was envisioning something along the lines of the Salt River in Arizona. A ton of people, drinking beers, relaxing in their intertubes, and taking in the rays -- occasionally with people diving off cliffs foolishly. One big party basically. Oh, but this is Switzerland and everything has rules. It makes me laugh.

Instead of there being hundreds of people in the river at once, they were only letting a small number of people in at a time. And, instead of beers and intertubes, there were inflatable duckys and boats with lifeguards. Very different than my past experiences. Even without all the craziness, it looked like something we should be a part of. As we were trying to figure out the schematics of how we were exactly going to do this schwimmen, like where do you keep your dry clothes for when you are done, is there a bus or something that takes you back to the beginning, how much money does it cost, etc., we noticed the crowd of people by the start of the swim.

The line just kept going and going. I guess we weren't the only ones thinking floating down the Limmat in 90 degree weather was a good idea. We decided to skip out on the actual schwimmen and save this event for next year. Come to find out, I heard that tickets were already sold out before that day. So, thank goodness we didn't end up waiting in line.