Today, the camels from Zurich Zoo visited Palais Kraft again. What fun to see these huge, beautiful animals with their trainers in front of Palais Kraft!

When you stay at Palais Kraft, please go and see the Zurich Zoo! It is just three tram stops from Palais Kraft, or a pleasant walk (1.7 km) up Krähenbühlstrasse. There are enough animals to see for a whole afternoon.

"Leaving Small's Hotel" a Novel by Eric Kraft

"Imagine, please, an island, a small one, not in some pellucid subtropical sea, but in a gray bay, shallow, often cold, and on the island imagine an old hotel, where an aging dreamer, Peter Leroy, lives with his beautiful wife, Albertine Gaudet.

Albertine runs the hotel, and Peter spends much of each day sitting in a room on the top floor, writing the Personal History, Adventures, Experiences & Observations of Peter Leroy, his life story.

If you could look over his shoulder and watch him at work, you would be likely to find that he was re-writing an episode from his past, making of his life a story that it never was, because when he reminisces he finds that he’s as interested in the possibilities as he is in the facts, and also because memory, like an old radio receiver, picks up a lot of static."

Review by Robin Nesbitt in the Library Journal, April 1, 1998

"Peter Leroy and his wife, Albertine, run a small hotel on an island near Babbington, Long Island. Peter, nearing age fifty, is reflecting on his life. The hotel business isn’t doing so well; there’s been a decrease in guests, and there isn’t enough money to fix the leaky roof or mend the cistern. Peter worries about his wife’s happiness, about getting older, and about his future. Albertine, who runs the hotel, creates an advertisement about Peter reading from his memoirs—one entry a day—leading up to his fiftieth birthday in the hopes of enticing more paying guests. Through the daily memoirs, we begin to hear stories about thirteen-year-old Peter and his friends. Peter talks about his crush on a neighbor woman and about his adult friend Porky White, owner of the Kap’n Klam restaurants. Past and present intermingle as we learn about the boy who became Peter Leroy. Kraft, who has written several other books about Peter (Little Follies, St. Martin’s, 1995), has created a beguiling tale of hope, friendship, memories, and love. Recommended for all fiction collections."

Eric Kraft's Website