Fine to name the restaurant if they charge for water, but please dont mention peoples names.

Kath x

Thanks. Well it was The Spaghetti Factory in Zurich. The attitude of the waiter was rude and unhelpful. We spent a lot of money in that restaurant on food and drinks and to charge 3 francs (about 2 pounds) for a glass of water was in my opinion a rip off. Not a good way to earn himself a tip and he didn't get one! Neither will we return. We visited other restaurants and were not charged for water.

Nah this is the swiss all over, they all want to earn bankers wages but can only get waiter wages.

In my last trip of 7 days I had to leave 2 restaurants due to their rudeness, "could we have the menu"? "well yes unless you want to be a mind reader" was one example.

Although I had a lovely time in Switzerland, one of the things that really got my goat was when a Swiss person ordered a coffee in a cafe/restaurant they all seemed to get a free complimentary large glass of tap water with it. Presumably to negate the effects of the caffeine.

Everytime we ordered a coffee, even a cafe solo, we didn't get one !

Also because they all still smoke even though fags seem to cost 18 Swiss Francs a pack of 20 (is that about £15 ) they can make one tiny coffee, a glass of tap water plus 5 fags last an hour & a half. By then we had consumed a had a couple of coffees each, a few pastries and/or crepes, costing a small fortune in comparison. I think financially we were contributing much more to the coffers than the locals ! Not a problem but I wish I knew why we didn't get the free water.

You usually have to ask for it Doe. Whenever I order a coffee in a cafe in Germany, Austria or Switzerland I always ask for a glass of tap water with it(Leitungswasser in German)

Ah that would explain it Judith.

It kind of seemed to come automatically in all the pavement cafes we were in, but perhaps they were asking for it ?

I ended up being so thirsty I was ordering coca cola as well, coffee seems to make me thirsty and I have the sometime British aversion to paying for water, especially when others seem to be aquiring it for free !

What a numpty I am, even my 30 year old French still runs to un verre de l'eau s'il vous plait.

What a numpty I am, even my 30 year old French still runs to un verre de l'eau s'il vous plait.

You're definitely not a numpty ... you've got a good memory and are polite as well. Definitely qualities to be valued!

Thank you. I want to go back to Morges/Lausanne/Montreaux, 3 and a half days was not enough time there.

Have just realise the original post was dated October 2009.

Doe

yes, I was wondering why the thread had suddenly burst back to life! You might be mistaken about Swiss ciggy prices, they used to be cheaper than most EU countries, about CHF6-7 a couple of years ago, I'll check next month. The water with coffee without asking might have been something to do with type of coffee, you'd get it with espresso but maybe not with capucino.

steve8482 wrote:

yes, I was wondering why the thread had suddenly burst back to life .

I think one of our new members has been trawling through the old posts and bumping them up

They seemed to have a complicated arrangement regarding ciggy purchases from machines in hotels/bars.

We don't smoke, but i was facinated by one and stared at it for so long a member of staff who thought I wanted to buy asked if they could help, apparently you can't put money in.

You have to go somewhere, maybe a small shop or newsagents, purchase tokens and then put those in the cigarette machines. I was reading the prices off the machine Steve & could have got it all wrong, perhaps it was 8 SF not 18 SF that would make more sense.

I thought about it for a while after and I guess it's to stop children/teens from buying ciggies out of machines directly.

maybe, I've seen machines in Germany that don't take money only credit cards - presumably you'd have to be a certain age to have one of those so it builds in some restriction. I'd always thought the only things cheaper in Switzerland were petrol and ciggies. Go close to the German border and there aren't many shops, but a lot of petrol stations that sell ciggies - cross over to the German side and there's loads of shops but not so many petrol stations. Watch a pedestrian only crossing over the border, there's loads of people with big shopping bags!

OH was in Switzerland for a few days last week and he said that the petrol was now more expensive than Germany, due no doubt to the very strong franc.

Yes you need to have a credit card to obtain cigarettes from the machines in Germany and apparently your age is imbedded in the chip to stop underage purchases. I don't know how well it's working though as I see loads of young people coming home from school everyday smoking cigarettes.

Perhaps in the part of Switzerland I was in they ara all nipping over the border to France and Germany to get their fags ? If they are cheaper it would make economic sense to do a ciggy run now and again.

There certainly seemed to be a lot of smoking in their outdoor cafe society, maybe their government/NHS has not got to them like ours have. It was all ages including middle aged folk, don't see many middle aged people smoke in England anymore. Maybe their government are still keen on the taxes it produces.