Bahnhofstrasse

Running from the main railway station down to the shore of Lake Zurich, Bahnhofstrasse is the city's principal avenue and one of the most expensive shopping streets in the world. Laid out in the 1860s over a filled-in moat, it is largely closed to cars and served by trams gliding between rows of banks, department stores and watch and jewellery houses. In December it is hung with a canopy of suspended lights that has become a fixture of the Zurich winter. At its lake end the street opens onto Bürkliplatz and a view across the water to the Alps.