Zürich

Zurich's secret is that under the wool suit there is a swimsuit: the world's tidiest financial alleys run straight down to a lake and a river so clean the whole city bathes in them on summer evenings, briefcases parked beside the diving boards. Dada was invented here, at Cabaret Voltaire, presumably as a pressure valve — order this complete generates its own surrealists.

The sensible traveller walks the Niederdorf's guild lanes to the Grossmünster's twin towers — climb one for the lake-and-Alps panorama —, checks Chagall's blue windows at the Fraumünster, and then does the most local thing possible: a badi, one of the wooden bath houses on the water, where entry costs less than a coffee and the afternoon dissolves. Sunset is for the lake promenade, sausage from a grill stand in hand.

The Guide's honesty: everything costs what it costs — the badi, the grill sausage and the tap water are the affordable trinity, and they happen to be the best part —; shops close Sundays with Protestant conviction: provision Saturday; and the Alps at the horizon are not decoration: Uetliberg's summit is twenty minutes by commuter train, ticket included in the city pass.