Üetliberg Mountain

One block away from us is a train station.  In one direction, the S10 takes you to downtown Zürich and the Hauptbahnhof; in the other, to the top of Üetliberg Mountain.  The kids have gotten a fair number of days to themselves.  Today was Dennis's turn to choose, and so to Üetliberg we went. Alex packed for the trip with the precision of a Boy Scout: when he heard "mountain," into his satchel went some oranges, his binoculars, his camera.

I suppose it says a lot for our style of traveling when, as we stepped out of the apartment and a bus went by, Joey pointed it and said "Oh no! Hurry! The train! Hurry!"  We do seem to do a lot of mad dashes to train stops.  But today we were leisurely, as the trains run frequently and the weather was fine.

The train was crowded.  With all the stores closed on Sunday, the population heads outside.  But we squeezed into the standing-room-only melee for the ten-minute ride up.

And when we stepped off the train, the kids gasped at the beauty they beheld.  It was stunning.  It was breathtaking. It was....a playground.  Ella, who had been feeling sluggish and testy, cheered up instantly and the kids, all three, dashed off to play while Dennis and I wandered around and enjoyed the view.  To be fair, it was a pretty incredible playground.  They had a little coin-operated swing ride that Joey just adored, and a little roller-slide that took the kids down the mountain, and a really lovely play structure.  And there was a perfectly adequate snack bar there as well. I think we'll return again and again.

Especially if it snows.  Right next to the train station is also the start of a 3+ km sledding hill.  It's popular to take the train to the top of the mountain and sled down to the next train stop, and then train back up again, pause for a cup of cocoa, and then sled down again.  Mind-blowing, as I think back to hauling my sled to the top of the hills in the Metroparks.  These kids will never know how lucky they are.

We had plans to hike to a fondue restaurant about a kilometer from the train station, so eventually we gathered the kids and headed off.  They were happy to go, though, because the way to the restaurant is part of the Üetliberg "Planet Walk," a trail that is also a 1:1,000,000 scale model of the solar system.

Ella and the Earth

The sun is right next to the train station, and between there and the hotel we found stone markers with models of all of the inner planets. The kids raced ahead, trying to find the next marker and the next.  (Every once in a while, though, Alex would stop and take out his binoculars to take in the view or pull out his camera for a picture. Absolutely adorable.)  To get all the way to Pluto, we'd need to walk about two miles of stroller-unfriendly terrain, so though the kids were eager, that will be for another day.

Dennis was really looking forward to his fondue lunch, and I'm sorry to say it didn't happen.  The restaurant was crowded and the servers, abrupt.  No space. Absolutely not.  So, disappointed, we turned around and headed back to a lookout that had a wurst and french fry stand. Boy Scout Alex munched on his oranges along the way.  Oh well.  Fondue, too, will be for another day.

We wandered back to the playground and let the kids have an ice cream treat before taking the train home.

Exhausted from the fresh air, we were all too happy to let dear Uncle Television, our only babysitter, entertain the kids for the length of a movie while we regrouped.

The kids are tired, too, and they were all kind of snipping at each other this evening (and they haven't really done that lately).  Today is the first day we got the boys to sleep at their once-normal 7:00 bedtime.  Ella followed soon after.  She was excited to go to bed, though: she's under the impression that her class is going ice skating during school tomorrow, and so the morning can't come soon enough.