We will be spending one night in Zurich before heading home to the U.S. Our plane leaves out around 10 a.m. the next morning. Would like to stay somewhere downtown, or old town Zurich with easy access to a train station to get to the airport. Nothing fancy, in fact, older , historic is better. Any recommendations on hotels or inns, or parts of town? Thank you!
Deborah,
For convenience to the train station, you might consider Hotel Walhalla. It's only about a two minute walk to the station and some of the local tour firms operate from the lot across from the hotel entrance. Also, the Trams run right in front of the hotel. The trip to the airport is only about 10 minutes.
This is not historic but we stay at Hilton (operated by Apart Hotels in Opfikon/Glattburg). It is minutes from he hotel and they run their own shuttle to the airport. The night before we leave we repack our stuff, take our car to the airport and turn it in (and weight any bags that may be over), and take their shuttle BACK TO the hotel. The next morning we take it TO the airport and go home.
With the shuttle we don't have to take the train or car to the airport. If you are arriving by train then you can stop at the airport, do your repacking (they have lockers and a luggage holding area), and then 'transfer' to the shuttle for the ride to the hotel.
Staying near the airport is boring and eats up your last day of sightseeing. Staying near the main train station is the best way to go (unless you are unfortunate enough to have a silly rental car). We always stay in the Hotel St. Josef near to the main train station.
I the same situation, I enjoyed my stay at www.hotel-leoneck.ch, just across the river/bridge from the train station.
I'm with cabalist, we also stayed at that Hilton and it worked out very well. No one says you have to spend much time at an airport hotel, spend as much time as you want in the city, prepay for a late arrival, don't unpack, just get up at a reasonable hour the next day and head into the unpleasantness of airport security these days.