Our very first summer in Switzerland, I heard about this great place to take the kids, Schloss Lenzburg. It was close, it was cheap, there was hands on stuff for the kids to do, it was essentially the perfect outing for people with small children. For some reason, it took me 8 years to actually get in the car and go there. Don't ask me why, I really couldn't tell you. But now that I have seen it in person, I am kicking myself that we didn't go earlier.
Nick invited his friend, Till along, which worked out perfectly since Chris wanted to stay home and get some things done around the house. We also met up with my friend Pamela and her two boys. Unfortunately, they had to leave earlier than we did, so we didn't spend the whole day with them, but it was nice to see them again just the same.
They had a nice little display set up showing different scenes of castle life in the middle ages. At the end of this was a small maze leading to a baby dragon. Noah and Sarah were scared at first, because it moved and made noises, and was just a bit too realistic. I finally convinced Noah to just take a look at it, but Sarah ran off back down the hallway in an effort to get away. There is a statue on the roof of a larger dragon that is original to the castle. They pretended that was the mom of the baby.
The kids had a blast trying on all the different costumes that were available, and playing in the miniature castle inside the children's part of the museum. There was even a craft corner where the kids could make and decorate their own crowns. We must have been in there for a good 30 minutes, and they could have stayed longer, but I wanted to go see the rest of the castle.
The castle is very old, the Habsburg family lived there at one point. There is a small moat, and you enter it by walking over a real drawbridge! We walked through the rooms in the castle that were open to the public. They are all furnished with old furniture and dishes from the period. The girls spied a pair of blue dancing slippers by one of the beds and wished they could try them on. In the kitchen, Sarah had to leave again because there was a stuffed dead rabbit hanging on a hook, just like it would have been when people lived there. There were also pretend chickens locked in a cupboard making clucking noises.
On the second floor of the castle, there was an old jail. Normally, you always hear of dungeons being in the basements of castles, but this one was just down the hall from the kitchen. Kind of funny, but I guess since the castle was built on solid rock, it was too hard to build a basement just for a bunch of prisoners. As we walked in the jail door, there was a "guard" lying face down on the table. I think he was supposed to be sleeping on the job, but the kids were convinced he was dead. I kept having to explain that he was just pretend, but they were still freaked out a bit. In one of the jail cells, they had another two "prisoners" chained up and sitting on the floor. It did look eerily realistic, especially with the darkened light coming from the small windows.
< p>After the gloominess of the interior, we went and walked through the formal gardens. They had a few tables with chairs around it, and we walked over thinking we could have a little snack there. Apparently, it was just for show, as there was a sign on the table saying no picnicking was allowed in the garden. Um, wouldn't it just be easier to remove the very modern looking table and chairs, then, since they don't add anything to the ambience? We did eventually find a place to sit and eat, and it even came with a gorgeous view of the surrounding countryside. There was a neighboring castle right across the valley, and the kids wondered if the people who lived in that castle ever tried to invade the people in our castle, or if they were friends.
Just before going home, we went into the large banquet hall and tried to imagine eating dinner there 500 years ago. You can now rent out the space for parties, weddings and large gatherings. It would be kind of fun to have a big wedding anniversary party there. Of course, first I would need to have a husband who actually enjoyed wedding anniversary parties, wouldn't I? 🙂
It was a great outing, and we will definitely go again the next time we have any visitors. Hopefully, it won't take another 8 years.
Count us in when we ever come! I would love to see it. Of course Pete says, "You've seen one castle, and you've seen them all." I bet the kids would love it, though!