Beyond Switzerland's Busiest City, A Visit to Winterthur in the Canton of Zurich

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The Canton of Zurich

Over the past year, we have passed through Switzerland’s largest city, Zurich, more times than I can even count. Zurich Hauptbahnhof (HB) is, by far, the country’s largest train hub and nearby Zurich airport connects German speaking Switzerland to the rest of the world.

Despite so many visits, we have avoided talking much about Zurich on the blog. Beyond being the least hidden place in all of Switzerland, Zurich’s urban center receives more attention and visitors than any other place in the country and you are likely to find better, and more complete, resources for your visit elsewhere on the internet. The bottom line is the City of Zurich warrants (and most certainly has) its own dedicated blogs.

All that said, Zurich is only a small portion of the overall Canton of Zurich which generally receives an order of magnitude less attention than the city itself. It’s easy to understand why the rest of the Canton gets overshadowed but I think that is a bit of a shame. The Canton of Zurich has some great towns, lovely natural wonders (think Rheinfall and Lake Zurich), and some exceptional history that you don’t have to scratch too hard to uncover.

This week we take a trip to Winterthur. Traditionally its own industrial powerhouse, as of late, it seems that Winterthur has become one of Zurich’s busiest suburbs (which I am sure residents will resent me for saying). Regardless, with a great old town, interesting and dynamic redevelopment areas, and stunningly dense forest just outside of town, Winterthur could be a world away from its busier neighbor.

Beyond its train station, Winterthur offers a reprieve from the hustle and bustle while remaining just minutes from Zurich Main Station and Zurich Airport. It's a great opportunity to diversify your view of Switzerland’s most populated Canton.

Before we get started, I will head off a bit of the confusion with the photos and say that we made three separate visits to Winterthur this year. The first was in April during a freak snowstorm, the second was for a housewarming party during the summer, and the third time was the same day as our IC81 journey to Thurgau that we shared a few weeks ago. The resulting photos are a bit of a mixed bag from those trips. While we piecemealed our visit, you can easily do all the same explorations in a single day.

Thanks for joining us!

A Post Industrial Winterthur

On most days, Winterthur’s train station is almost as bustling as Zurich HB with thousands of commuters making their way between the two cities. Stepping away from the train station, however, offers a completely different experience from Zurich. Seemingly all around the Winterthur train lines are massive, (mostly) former, brick warehouses and factories.

An example of the post industrial redevelopment in Winterthur

Heavy industry boomed in Winterthur starting in the early 19th Century profiting from the city’s central location, excellent train connections, and proximity to Zurich to become a world-renowned producer of machines and machine parts (including many of the trains making their way around the country).

Until the Great Depression of the 1930’s wiped out nearly a third of Winterthur’s jobs, nearly 60% of the town’s 50,000 or so inhabitants were employed by machine manufacturers. An ephemeral rebound during the Second World War and strong population growth were, however, not enough to stem Winterthur’s outsourcing of heavy industry through to the end of the 20th Century.

While many of the companies founded in Winterthur retain their headquarters here today, many of the old industrial buildings have been released and thoughtfully redeveloped to form a dynamic commercial and residential zone around the train station.

From Roman Outpost to French Battlefield

Perhaps unsurprisingly, Winterthur’s importance as an economic hub extends far beyond its 19th Century industrialization.

As early as the 1st Century AD, there was a heavily fortified Roman settlement, Vitudurum, at Oberwinterthur about 5 kilometers to the east of the train station. Vitudurum played an important role on the trade route between the Swiss Plateau and Lake Constance, the border between modern Switzerland and Germany and the far edge of the Roman Empire at that time.

When the Romans retreated from Lake Constance at the beginning of the 5th Century, Vitudurum was also largely abandoned. Little is known about the ensuing centuries, but it does appear that the Alemani who settled Oberwinterhur in the wake of the Romans retained some of the trade routes and Winterthur’s importance through to the early Middle Ages.

In the early 12th Century, nearby Niederwinterthur eclipsed Oberwinterthur with the support of one of Switzerland’s leading noble families, the Counts of Kyburg. The Kyburg’s assumed control of most of the regional trade and rebranded their hometown as simply, Winterthur. When the Kyburg line died out near the end of the 13th Century, control of the town passed to the Habsburgs who granted Winterthur status as a free imperial city in the Holy Roman Empire, beholden only to themselves and the Emperor.

At this point, Winterthur was heavily fortified and resisted several forceful sieges by the nearby expansionist City of Zurich. Zurich, a new member of the Old Swiss Confederacy, generally resented nearby Winterthur’s influence over trade and did everything in their power to quell that power.

Into the 15th Century Zurich and the Confederates had managed to take over most of eastern Switzerland including Thurgau to the east leaving Winterthur as an island in the middle of Swiss territory. Financially desperate, the Habsburg’s mortgaged the town of Winterthur to an eager City of Zurich, fundamentally stamping out the freedoms the free city had enjoyed for the prior 200 years.

This less-than-ideal arrangement for Winterthur lasted for three more Centuries until the forces of Napoleon marched into Switzerland at the end of the 18th Century, opening a new (metaphorical) can of worms.

Today’s historical town center of Winterthur, just down the street from the train station and its industrial core, is what is left of the Imperial City. In the late 19th Century, Winterthur made the decision to tear down its defensive ramparts and fill its moats paving the way for its industrial development.

What is left of the large and well-ordered town center is worth a visit. The old town hosts a myriad of shopping, dining and a couple of nice-looking museums (though we have yet to explore them very well).

The Stadtkirche Winterthur, with its two-dueling bell towers, dominates the center of the old town. The northern bell tower dates all the way back to the 11th Century but most of the modern church was constructed throughout the late 15th and early 16th Centuries. Interior renovations in the 1920’s saw the bare walls of the reformed church painted in a love it or hate it Romanesque style by artist Paul Zehnder (I actually like it quite a lot).

View of the Winterthur Old Town

The two bell towers of the Winterthur Stadtkirche

As far as Swiss old towns go, I would say Winterthur falls somewhere in the middle of the pack. It’s well kempt and retains some of its historic charm, but it is unlikely to give you an entire day’s worth of entertainment like the old towns of Bern or Zurich. Luckily, the rest of Winterthur is packed with good museums to keep you plenty busy so it shouldn’t put you off.

As an aside, if you are exploring Winterthur’s old town, it’s worth popping out for a second on the far east-side of the old town. The German-Swiss inventor and entrepreneur Johann Sebastian Clais had a magnificent English garden and villa built just beyond the city walls in 1787. Today, the house hosts the Muesum Lindengut, Winterthur’s local history museum, and its gardens, with a nice series of exotic bird aviaries (somewhat similar to what we found in Zug a few months back) are free and open to the public.

In the gardens of Museum Lindengut

Getting High in Winterthur

Modern Winterthur takes up most of seven valley bottoms around the Töss River but, all around, forest surrounds the town making it feel much more rural than it actually is. The best way, in my opinion, to get a sense for Winterthur’s geography and importance as a trade center is to get up high into the hills and find an expansive viewpoint.

All across Switzerland, a series of tall observation towers get forest visitors high up above the forest canopy, typically offering stunning views but we don’t usually advertise them on the blog. Most of the towers tend to be a bit out of the way and they tend to consist of shaky metal staircases and grated platforms that get my heart racing just thinking about.

That said, there are a couple of towers in Winterthur close enough to the city to consider if you want the absolute best views the region has to offer.

If you want to go modern, the Brühlbergturm, just to the east of the city center, swirls its way most of the way up a large TV tower offering expansive views and a comparably stable viewing platform. Perhaps unsurprisingly, I prefer the lower key and more historic Burg Ruine Alt Wülflingen viewing platform just one ridge over from Brühlberg.

The tower of Burg Ruine Alt Wülflingen

Wülflingen is a couple of stops outside of Winterthur on the S-Bahn. From the train station at Wülflingen, you can cross the tracks towards the hills and follow a series of nicely developed forest paths and boardwalks all the way up to the castle ruins. The path goes through the Totentäli biodiversity area which forms part of the largest continuous forest reserve in Winterthur and provides critical habitat for endangered amphibians like the bell frog.

Boardwalks through the Totentäli Reserve

The castle at Alt Wülflingen has been around since at least the 11th Century but was substantially expanded in the 12th Century as a fortified residence by the Kyburgs. The castle served as a noble residence until the late 16th Century. At that point, the plague took many of the castles residents including its lord.

Attempts to sell the castle to Winterthur were unceremoniously blocked by Zurich who didn’t want to see Winterthur gain any more power. Eventually the castle passed to Zurich nobles who built a new residence in the valley bottom, pilfering materials from the old castle and its outbuildings. The old castle on the hill served as a prison until 1764 but eventually fell into such disrepair that it was completely abandoned shortly thereafter.

Restoration work began on the castle in the late 19th Century and continued throughout the 20th Century. In 2018, work was completed on an internal observation tower that now allows you to climb to the top of the tower and take in the view of Winterthur. It's not the highest point in the region but, nonetheless, offers exceptional views.

Hundreds of formal associations formed modern Switzerland

From either Brühlberg or Wülflingen you can really tell how the industrial areas of Winterthur developed around the old town. Both view points also give you a glimpse at one of Switzerland’s first skyscrapers, the 28 story, 99.7 m (327 ft) Sulzer Tower built in the 1970’s. Sulzer tower is still Switzerland’s tenth-tallest building.

Looking out over the town center of Winterthur

Near Endless Opportunity for Exploration and Cultural Engagement

Today, Winterthur is somewhat of a cultural capital of Switzerland with a hefty number of museums including the Science and Technology Themed Technorama and several renowned art exhibits. We haven’t had a chance to visit many of these sites yet but we will most certainly be back soon. Likewise, Winterthur’s central location makes it a gateway to both eastern Switzerland and the Canton of Zurich so, if you are looking for a nice way to supplement your trip out east, look no further.

We hope you enjoyed hearing about our visit to Winterthur. You can check out the other posts in this project our One Year: 26 Canton page! Stay tuned for additional articles on our Swiss travels every week!

Until next time, gute Reise, and feel free to leave a comment on one of our social media platforms!