I'm thinking of moving to Winterthur as I have family and a partner all living near Zürich. I've lived in the the Rheintal on and off for the past 20 or so years and will continue working here for the time being.
Interested to hear any thoughts about in life in Winterthur.
The good the bad and the ugly!
Thanks
maloney
I live in Winterthur with my family since 9 years.
The good:
- Winterthur is family friendly
- Zürich is only 30 minutes away with SBB trains
- trains to Zürich run several times in 60 minutes
- you don't need a car in Winterthur, everything can be reached by Velo
- too many empty shopping malls
- Konstanz is only 45 minutes away
- criminal rate is close to zero
The bad:
- avoid living downtown Winterthur, too much old buildings
- not much job opportunities here
- on Winterthur Bahnhof Buses and Trollis drive right through passing people, every few seconds, dangerous for children
The ugly:
- the town is unusual noisy
- Winterthur has been called the Greece of Switzerland (highly in debt), but this is not your problem.
- Avoid medical doctors in downtown Winterthur. Some of them have stopped learning 30 years ago.
Overall you can be happy in Winterthur with your family. Go shopping in Konstanz like everyone else and you have real money left at the end of the month.
PM me if you want more details. Good luck!
Walter
In our area, there are lots of diverse people - kids, older people, diverse cultural types, cats and dogs and even some green space.
There is loads of construction where we are, including much tearing up of various streets. Driving to the bahnhof can suck. This is somewhat annoying. But, it means new and renovated flats.
If this matters to you, SVP is not especially strong here.
Generally it all sounds great. Thanks for the detailed overview of the good, the bad and the ugly.
Its got to be a tough decison as I would be leaving friends here and missing all the wonderful outdoors activities you can do between the Alpstein, the Rhein and the Bodensee. Still I plan to keep working here and would commute by train from Winterthur most days.
Hey Edot...did you know that the Rheintal is a Hochburg of the SVP. I know a few prominent SVPler ..most are ok. They just want to preserve a Switzerland that in many respects has slowly disappeared .Having said that though pockets still exist around here and in Appenzell of archaic conservatism
Overall, it is nice here, but really boring on weekends, events happen very rarely. I am still getting used to that after moving from ZH, which means that every weekend or so we get out of here to ZH or Konstanz or elsewhere...
Btw, velos here also drive through people like cars
Unlike other poster I found there was alot on, each areas Fascht, afro pfingsten, music week etc
I lived in Oberwinterthur for 4 years before moving to Baden recently and it was great
Fascht, Afro Pfingsten and Albani - all are great in Winti, agreed. But not much in between of them.
One thing I also find confusing: there are three swimming pools in Winti, and all are in the middle of nowhere. I live 7 mins walk from HB and it takes me 20 mins by foot to the nearest swimming pool - they all are located not wisely I should get a bike!
Sarah
So, we will most probably move to CH. Husband's job will be near Uster, and we are thinking about moving to Winterthur. Zurich suburbs would be another option, but I really think we will get more bang for our buck in Winterthur. PLUS it's closer to Germany, not quite as big, well connected by train and road, and I don't see too many negative sides. I am mainly interested to know if there are certain Quartiere that you do not recommend at all. As we will be looking for a house to rent (with a little "Umschwung", of course...I love this word!) I guess we will be looking more at the outskirts (Or will we not?). Is there a good local relo company anyone has used and can recommend (as the employer pays it, we will be wanting house hunting plus schools plus admin help package).
Thanks
T
It is a very pretty town with more of a centre and independent sense of living than other places between Zurich and the German border. The bikes rule the place which makes is feel more European than Swiss.
I've been here for the last 8 years.
If you have a mountain bike, like I do, and love riding, it is a paradise.
So much forest, so many paths and trails, you can never get tired of exploring he area by bike. And going up the Tösstal on a bike is really nice, for the whole family.
Downside: The motorway through Winterthur is hell at rushhour, and the feeders into the city get clogged too.
If I drive, I take alternative routs and avoid the city at rushhour.
The pools are great, the library is just gorgeuos, the old town is very pretty.
It is a large city of just over 100,000 people and nicely spread out, lots of very pretty areas to live, but also some areas of lots of apartment buildings.
I have subscribed to home gate and immoscout ads for the area, but I get not too many houses right in winterthur, a lot of them are more countryside-ish. I don't mind countryside for as long as there is a decent train connection (either to Zurich or Winterthur). I just want all the commodities (shopping, primary school) within easy walking/bike distance and it seems most places do have primary school. Garden & Garage is important. We are looking at a 4 BR and from what I see our budget will be alright for an ok place (yeah, hell, I mean, the limit is the Stars, I just saw this stunning house at Engel & Völkers...a dream...a nightmare price, obviously).
Right now we live in a place with approx. 12000 people, two minutes to the fields, five minutes to the supermarkets, 10 minutes to the train Station, 20-30 mins to work for both of us, so I'd love something similar (even though I don't have a clue if/what I will work there, as I "only" wanna work part time)
See you around
T
- Special biking lanes
- Nice parks and jogging/walking paths
- Beautiful altstadt
- Zurich airport is near
- Environment is really clean
- Different kind of restaurants
Bad things;
- For a foreigner, speaking other languages than german, this is not the place to stay if not capable of learning fluent swiss german in the first 24h after arriving, this is only concerning guys or woman with lower than C-cup
- Still small enough city that everyone knows everybody, which is someway good thing, but usually it is like group of teenager girls speaking bad about each other
- Polices are using sirens 24/7, even when they could only use the lights, like during the Mon-Thu nights when there is no traffic..
- Not much open areas -> no wind and air is not changing -> really thick air to breath, especially at summer times. Today seems to be refreshing exception
Basically, you can easily enough reach a level where you can sit at the Stammtisch, without having to learn the banjo.
I actually would avoid having to move away from Winti, so I'd have to admit I'd recommend living there.