Here are a few photos I took on a recent tour of northern Switzerland. A friend of mine, Gareth Bourne, and I were invited to stay with a mutual friend who lives in Ober-Ohringen, near Winterthur, just outside Zürich.

We started by taking the train up the Uetliberg, a hill to the west of Zürich with great views of the city and its lake; however it was rather misty so there wasn’t much to see of the city itself. The trees were covered with hoar frost though, giving them a wonderful wintery look, and we got to see a paraglider swoop past us.

On the next day we travelled up to the Rheinfall, a powerful waterfall of which Iceland would be proud, however I was suffering from a cold on this day, and didn’t have the energy or the inclination for many photos. Feeling better on the Tuesday, we yomped up Goldenberg, one of Winterthur’s seven hills, then down into the town itself for some urban photography and, of course, some beer.

The weather for our day trip to the alps could not have been more perfect. Clear blue skies with a hint of haze over the lakes meant that the view from the top of Rigi, an 1800m mountain with a cog railway that takes you to the top, was sensational. The Black Forest in Germany was visible to the north, while the sun cast curtains of shadow through the mist that clung to the surface of Vierwaldstättersee (Lake Lucerne) to the west. We took a different route down the mountain to catch the ferry to Lucerne itself, as the sun began to set behind Pilatus, a mountain on the western shore of the lake, and a couple of aircraft drew interesting vapour trails in the sky.

We spent the last day in Zürich itself, walking from the station down to the lake, where birds in their hundreds fight for scraps from people with bread to spare, and the Heidi Weber house designed by Le Corbusier. As the evening darkened we wandered back through the old town to stop for a few more beers as the rain started, then caught a late night flight back to London.