Legendary American singer, Tina Turner reportedly spent her final days wandering the picturesque lakeside countryside in Switzerland that she called home.
The multi-million singer would casually stroll through the streets of Küsnacht shopping for designer clothes and gourmet food. Some days, she would sit on a chair in the local park, staring across the Zurichsee Lake at the snow-covered mountains that mark this Alpine nation.
The late singer would also drive herself around the narrow lanes in her Porsche Cayenne.
In interviews with Mail Online, neighbors remembered the iconic singer, who died last Wednesday at 83, as ‘modest’, ‘friendly’, and ‘polite’
Butcher Benny Lang told Mail Online: ‘Tina Turner would come into town to do the shopping sometimes. She had a butler but she liked to go herself, with her husband Erwin.
‘They particularly liked the Moreira Gourmet House. It is the best place in the area to buy smoked salmon and white truffles. That’s what they bought there.’
Tina Turner moved to Küsnacht in 1995 when her German husband Erwin Bach got a job running the Swiss offices of EMI Music in nearby Zurich. They married in 2013.
In the same year, Tina acquired Swiss citizenship and gave up her US passport.
Turner, who learned to speak German to be eligible for Swiss nationality and picked up the distinct Swiss dialect, took up yoga classes at the Horn public park, a few minutes walk from her sprawling chateau.
A neighbor revealed: ‘When she first came to live here she took up yoga. She attended classes held in the park.’
Another added: ‘She liked to go to the park and sit by the water. It is a very peaceful place.
‘She would say ‘Gruezi’, how we say ‘hello’ in Swiss-German, to people walking their dogs. She was very friendly.’
Turner also frequented the Laredo designer clothes shop.
Shop assistant Arzu Oezoguz said: ‘Ms Turner would come into the shop. ‘She was very modest. She would come in with her husband Erwin.
‘She was not conceited. I would say ‘Hello, Ms Turner’ and she would say ‘hello’ back.
‘She liked shoes. We have some very nice shoes here, made by Italian designers. They cost about 1,000 Swiss francs.
‘We also sell clothes. Our dresses cost about the same.
‘Ms Turner liked to buy these. And she bought cashmere sweaters for her husband Erwin.’
She added: ‘Other times I would see her driving around the village in her Porsche Cayenne.
‘She was a very polite lady.’
Another resident, who wished to be named only as Carmen, said: ‘I would see Tina Turner walking in the street with her husband.
‘They seemed very relaxed and happy together.’
A short drive from the Switzerland’s financial capital Zurich, Küsnacht is home to many wealthy expat residents.
English is widely spoken in the high-class shops and restaurants that mark out this ancient village.
One resident said: ‘Wealthy people are live their life in peace here.
‘We leave them alone and let them be who they want to be.
‘That is why they come to live here.’