Planning ahead for Thursday-- do local shops close or will they be open to take advantage of people being off work?

Thanks for opening this thread. If I may also ask, does anyone know if the Viadukt is open on Thursday too?

You should expect most shops (i.e. all shops that hire staff) to be closed, as Ascension Day is a legally-recognised holiday in Switzerland. I would expect that it's legal to open a store if you're the sole proprietor, but you cannot hire anyone else to work on a holiday.

However, you may find this site somewhat helpful for future planning, because the different Swiss cantons have their own regional holidays.

The Viadukt is closed unfortunately

Along the lines of Ascension Holidays, is Friday a normal work day for most retailers?

Most will be closed. Even Migros in Zch-HB and Zch-Enge will be closed. COOP at Zch-Stadelhofen however will be open. Some railstation-shops will be open, others not.

The Friday and Saturday immediately after will be normally open, but Monday 28 May fully closed again.

Thanks for this useful post. Makes me wonder why I must work on the 17th and no compensation time or overtime is given. When I asked my boss he said that is the way it is in Switzerland.

Your boss is either a liar or a crook. You do not have to work on Auffahrt ! THIs is the way it is in Switzerland. In case you are working in a restaurant or an SBB ticket counter, he has to pay a Sunday surcharge

One of the projects where I work is running to very tight schedules. They have some staff from other European countries in for testing, plus the outsouring (Indian) IT partner.

They applied to the canton (Basel Stadt) for permission for the staff to work next Thursday in the office. And they were refused. This is cool!

Or you work for a large MNC and your boss is based in the US or UK and is so blinkered that he can't comprehend that there are different holidays in different countries... or even that there are different time zones...

(Welcome to OH's world. )

Cheese on the hill then champ?

Blinkered, no cultural sensitivity, low geographic literacy...

All of the above. On the bright side, there should be less traffic and no white van drivers!

We have someone working on Corpus Christi (Fronleichnam, 7 June) - we got the permission from Canton Luzern in December. If the application is too "last minute" it will be categorically denied as the company should have planned better (what I've heard from IT as they normally have planned maintenance windows on Sundays).

Lack of planning on a company's side does not constitute an emergency under most canton rules (mangled quote).

The link seems to be broken for the site you're suggesting. I tried it twice and it comes up with usual Internet Explorer dianogist problem screen.

A boss should know where his stations are. And is expected to know about holidays etc. If he does not, he may not be a liar or a crook but then he is a dimwit who ought to be freed of his "burden"

Finally a post about shops being closed that was not started by me

He's screwing you over.

Tom

I'm working the 28th. As it is a legally recognised holiday in Zurich etc, I get to take two paid days' holiday in compensation. As the 28th is a holiday, that Monday should be very quiet .

Only problem is that of course SBB and ZVV are on a holiday schedule, so I've got to leave home earlier ('crack of dawn', well to me anyway).

As a follow-up, are Thursday/Friday public holidays in France and Germany? Or can I make a cross-border shopping run?

all trains will be on normal schedules, buses however of course will be on "holiday-schedule" which in some cases (Adliswil for example) will mean ZERO