We went with our good friend Pamela and her two kids, Lucas and Matteo to the island of Mainau in Lake Constance. I first heard about it from reading my friend's account of going there on her blog. Then, like two days later, Pamela called wanting to know if I knew about this place and wanted to go with her and the kids. It was meant to be, I guess. It is also called Blumeninsel, or flower island, in German. Chris decided he was having enough trouble with his hayfever as it was, he didn't need to go walking into the mine field, as it were. I told him he could consider the day part of his Father's day gift. 6 hours with no kids, no one asking for help, no interruptions, free to do whatever he liked. He actually got a little lonely, but that's a good thing. 🙂
Anyway, the entrance is across the German border, so we made sure we all had our passports. The website said to just follow the signs. Well, there were occasional signs that said "Mainau" but nothing that indicated it was the place we wanted to go. But we got lucky and it ended up being the right place. They ought to address that on their website, though. :( There is a huge parking lot and then a little bridge you walk across to get to the actual island. On the side of the bridge, poking up out of the water is this thing….
Nicholas stopped to read the sign and was quite excited to learn that it had been around during the Crusades. He loves history and to see a part of it up close was pretty cool. At the beginning of the actual flower island is this lovely centerpiece.
The kids dubbed it, "The two headed flower monster" because of it's rather creepy appearance and the fact that the face was on both sides. Totally looks like something that would come alive and start killing people in a low-budget thriller, along the lines of "Attack of the Killer Tomatoes". But it is a cute spot to pose for pictures. We spent about an hour at the playground, eating lunch and playing, of course! Unfortunately, there were some teenage punks hogging some of the boats even though there was a sign clearly stating the playground was only for kids 12 and under. GRRR!
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We wandered over to the butterfly house, where Nicholas conquered his fears and got up close and personal with a butterfly. The last time we went into such an enclosure was in New York City, when he was 5 1/2 years old. One butterfly landed on him and he freaked out. Totally lost it, Chris had to take him outside to calm down. Ever since then he runs shrieking when one gets too close. But on this day, he went in and did great! He told me later it was because this enclosure was bigger, and the butterflies weren't so close to you. Whatever the reason, I am totally proud of him.
We walked over to the castle, which is the former residence of the family that owns the island still. They don't live there anymore, it belongs to the foundation they set up to run the place. There is a church attached to the castle, where you can apparently get married because we saw the whole bridal party walking around with the photographer. We even saw the rose petals still scattered on the ground where the bride had entered the church. It was very pretty, but it would be kind of creepy to get married in such a public place. I mean, there were crowds of people in the background of all their wedding shots!
We decided it would be fun to take the boat back to where we parked the car. Now, looking back I should have realized that this wouldn't work as there was no dock anywhere near where we parked our car. But Pamela seemed pretty convinced that it would be possible,so I figured she must have looked it up on the website before coming. No, she was just dreaming.;) So we walked all the way down to the boat dock for nothing, then asked about a bus back to the parking lot since the kids were getting a little tired from all the walking. We headed down the path, and we kept going, and going, and going, and then we realized that we had been going the WRONG direction this entire time. Of course, we figured it out at the point where it would take longer to turn around then to just keep going. Poor kids kept asking "When are we getting to the bus?" Um, yeah, about that….
We did smell some gorgeous roses and see a beautiful waterfall along the way, however. Also, saw some cute ponies and played in another small fountain. Then we were back to the beginning again and it was time to head home.
Well, Pamela headed off to a restaurant to feed her two, and I decided, spontaneously, that since we were in Germany I should buy some more groceries. Just wanted to run in quick and pick up some more meat, cheese and butter and snacks for the kids for on the way home. Yeah, 45 minutes later, two trips to atms because they wouldn't accept my credit card or debit card, I had no cash and one atm was broken, we finally got out of there. Sarah saw me running down the street to the first bank and started to cry because I was running AWAY from the car and she thought I had left them all. She broadcasts this to all the kids and Nicholas decides he should try to figure out how to drive the car?!?! to get them all home again. He was still working out the logistics of it in his head when I came running up. Lesson learned, should have told them first what was taking so long before running off to the bank. Got some nummy dark chocolate covered rice cakes for them, though, that no one was allergic to. :)