The Best Thing in the Universe

The best thing in the universe

A & R took R's birthday trip today (I'm sure they'll blog about it later) so S, T, L and I decided to take a trip to Insel Mainau, an island just over the Swiss-German border by Konstanz. After a couple hour train ride and a short bus ride we arrived at the entrance. A long walk down a tree and flower lined boulevard and then across a bridge brought us onto the island.

One of the first things we found was an amazing playground.  According to T:

It was the best thing in the universe.  You had to pull a rope to go across to an island. You had to have two people to pull since it was pretty hard to pull by yourself.

L & I tried it but I was a little too heavy for it and nearly capsized the thing so after that we stuck to bridges, tunnels, ladders, rope ladders and especially slides.

One of several neat tunnels

She didn't fall in (but they have a drier there just in case)

This slide she could reach on her own

Rope ladders are great

"Again Daddy!"

Nice View Too

Spaghetti Forest

The whole playground is built around a small lagoon with rope pull rafts and push pole rafts, bridges of varying difficulty (L found one she could cross without falling through fortunately), fun climbing structures and of course swings, ladders and slides. They also had some things we'd never seen before like a "Spaghetti Forest" which the kids loved to get lost in and various rooms that played with light (all dark aside from a few beams of light) and sound (echo chambers). 

We could have easily spent the whole day at the playground, but there was much more to do, including a treasure hunt so we decided to move along and see the rest of the island.  There were giant flower sculptures throughout the island (I think the peacock was the most impressive) and because of our recent warm weather the tulips and other spring flowers were out in force.

There were also lots of animals. In the insect village the bees were just beginning to come out (L was very excited to see them go into their hive - zoom in on the opening in the lower left to begin to get a feeling for the number of them that were buzzing around).

They also had a fantastic butterfly house, definitely the best I've ever seen with a wide range of butterflies, including some huge ones that were at least 6 inches across. T liked the turtles swimming in the river that twisted through it and contributed to the rain forest atmosphere (that was also helped by the periodic misting and the wide variety of exotic trees and flowers).

T liked the turtles -- especially ones that rode rafts down the river

There were bigger animals outside, with a pony ride for T and goats that were crazy for L (though once they swarmed her I'm not sure the feeling was mutual).

 The highlights were probably the flowers though. S loved this tree, which had amazingly curly branches.

She also enjoyed this climbing tree that arched over the path along the edge of the island.

Suspicious water fountain
But they bottle their own water here, so we knew it was good

S ponders a lone larger orange flower, that looks like it
decided to show up uninvited

L is on a real independent streak of late. She saw these stairs and was determined to go up on her own.  "I did it myself" she announced at the top. I made the mistake of carrying her back down, so then she needed to go up the next staircase -- and back down -- on her own (she'd take breaks to look back and make sure I wasn't following too closely).

 We saw lots of plantings that haven't quite bloomed, including this map of the area laid out in flowers. I think that A is going to need to take the kids back in a month to see what is new.

We finished the day with a quick trip back to the playground (with an exciting ride on an out of control merry go round).

S keeps L from flying away while T cheers them on

T summarizes the end of the trip:  And we found chocolate in a treasure chest. Then we take trains and we get home.