I was at the Zurich airport with a social pedagogue and other patients from the rehabilitation clinic, not to fly somewhere, but for a day trip. In fact, you can buy tickets for a 75-minute commented tour here. But before the tour started, we had lunch on the terrace. So if you are in Switzerland, you should definitely take your own food with you, otherwise it can quickly get expensive! Armed with bread, sausage and cheese, we were able to watch the planes landing and departing from the terrace until it was time for the bus tour.
Getting onto the bus!
When I saw the bus for the round trip, I only saw a huge touring bus with a normal entrance in front. You know, these buses where you get in the front and have to climb some more steps up. At that moment I asked myself how the heck would a wheelchair user get up there. It didn’t took long and the bus driver conjured up a ramp from the rear of the bus. The ramp was absolutely compact, “small folded” and hidden in the bus! On the other hand, it also made sense, because somehow disabled persons and wheelchair users must also get into the bus. The pixelated picture was the only one of me while using the wheelchair lift, but since I look very funny in it, I had to censor it >.<
In the bus itself, one could remain in the wheelchair and was ” buckled ” together with the wheelchair. Since I was able to move, I sat down at the next best seat and left my electric wheelchair in the care of the airport staff. Soon the bus started and the driver started his tour announcement in German – with a Swiss accent … or dialect? xD Well, I personally found it a little difficult to understand, but maybe you’ll do better. So we drove past shipyards, the road maintenance depot, the fire brigade and the rescue service. The bus then stopped at a place where you could get off and experience the take-offs and landings of the airplanes even closer. As a wheelchair user I could not “get off” that easily, because it would have been too complex and would have taken too much time. Well, you could still see planes landing and flying in the bus.
At some point the ride ended and we were back on the spectator terrace. Time for another snack xD Have you ever noticed that in public buildings there are so many white lines on the floor? I never thought about it, but Bernd, our social pedagogue, told us that it was meant for the visually impaired. It’s only logical, but I’ve never consciously noticed these stripes. So you can still learn something xD All around I can say that Zurich Airport is well prepared for its visitors and is therefore absolutely barrier-free!
Things I learned today:
1) Zurich airport offers tours of the site
2) Zurich Airport is absolutely barrier-free
3) Buses often have hidden ramps on the inside
