During our time in Switzerland there’s been a bit of an elephant in the room -or more accurately, in our Swiss purse. One CHF200 note.

You may recall the difficulty I had buying a bunch of flowers from a roadside farm a couple of weeks ago when we simply didn’t have enough small change. Here in Switzerland, that means anything smaller than a CHF50. The problem is, though, that we have almost stopped using cash and have been using our contactless cards more or less everywhere except those places that require cash - car park machines and flower stalls, and CHF200 notes don’t work in either case. So, with that in mind, I set out to get some change and tried to make a purchase with the CHF200 note.

No joy!

It’s an old note, removed from circulation during 2021 and now only exchangeable in a bank. And we are here for two weekends. Hmmm.

There had to be a way. Maybe there is a bank at the airport? I googled and discovered that not just any old bank will do, but that only a branch of the Swiss National Bank can change old banknotes. In Bern and Zürich.

A way down the page, after instructions about how notes can be posted (last resort I think) there was a short list of other, local banks where the SNB has enabled a facility to make such transactions and, good grief, one of them was just over the river from our hotel.

With a couple of hours to spare before leaving and having checked the opening hours (9am on a Monday morning) we set out to get it sorted.

The city is so lovely at this time of the day. It was quiet and there was a sense of everything just waking up and getting ready to face the day.

Thankfully, the bank was very much awake and working, for there was already a queue. After ten minutes or so I stepped forward, explained my problem and almost before I’d finished speaking, my CHF200 had been deposited in the cashier’s drawer and two CHF100 notes handed in my direction.

“Ich würde etwas kleineres bevorzugen, bitte” (I’d prefer something smaller, please)

The cashier rolled her eyes.

“Für uns, es ist normal” (It’s quite normal for us) she replied as she changed one of the CHF100 fora 50, 2 x 20s and a 10.

“Aber nichts fur Blumen an einem Hofladen” (But not for flowers in a farm shop!) which she grudgingly accepted.