Zurich's Altstadt is one of Europe's most intact medieval city cores, draped across both banks of the Limmat River where it spills out of Lake Zurich. The western bank, known as Lindenhügel, is the older half — the Romans built their customs post here in the first century AD — while the eastern Niederdorf quarter developed as a merchant and guild stronghold through the Middle Ages. Together they form a neighbourhood that feels genuinely lived-in rather than preserved under glass, where a 13th-century guild house might share a cobblestone alley with a natural wine bar and a clutch of independent bookshops.
Neighbourhood