A photograph today from our tour of Winterthur.
This is one of the church which has two towers - an act of defiance as I learned from our guide. In the 13th century, Winterthur was a vassal of the Hapsburghs. The Hapsburghs had money trouble and had to raise money so pawned the whole town to Zürich for 300 years. Every year, interest had to paid, Winterthurers had to promise to be good citizens of Zürich and new ways of making money had to be found as Zürich cut off all previous means. Winterthur turned to clock making and also to making beautiful tiled ovens, and when the church was being rebuilt later, it was built with two towers to annoy Zürich who had a churhc with two towers and had said Winti couldn't have one!
I found out all sorts of other things about Winti yesterday too -
Winterthur is the 6th largest place in Switzerland but only became a city in 2008 when the population reached 100,000.
The name Winterthur comes from Vitudurum the name of the Roman garrison which was where Oberwinterthur currently stands.
The Stadthaus was built as a temple of democracy and was designed by
Gottfried Semper.
When men and women bathed together in the public bathhouse, they had to sing Pslams to keep their minds off 'hanky panky'.
