>>>The 3rd place being the one I would be interested most in visiting - have been to 2nd and 4th quite often and prefer my own city to those. 1st surprized me - was there a few times but had never really thought of it as a place to live.
>
>In Switzerland I quite like Bale over Zurich. Vienna must be nice but I agree I'd look to Frankfurt, or even one of the French cities just across the border - Colmar? Strasbourg? Have learned to enjoy that triangle between Germany, Switzerland and France. Kids particularly enjoy the whole Rhine (see surname) river thing and the way they can wade across it to invade other countries if you know where to go. ;-)

Züri is one of the few cities where I feel more at home in the surrounding area than the city itself - there are nice places around Lake Zürich. And the Bale area is very nice - in my twens I often went to the Freiburg area for fun and sports, which is just a few minutes to drive to CH