Landesmuseum Zürich

Not feeling exactly better, but at least more motivated, we today took the kids to the Zürich National Museum. The museum, housed in a gorgeous castle, is directly outside the main train station in Zurich, the Hauptbahnhopf. Ella gave a little sigh of happiness when she exited the stairway and saw it.

I have to say, it's really fun visiting museums with the kids. They generally ask interesting questions and are engaged, and, when they're not, they give me an excellent excuse to breeze through the portrait galleries.

Of course, when you take a kid to a museum, you have to be prepared to explain...everything.  In kid-satisfying detail.  Which can be kind of exhausting and tricky when the galleries are filled with religious art, and, later, depictions of the burning of heretics.

 Dennis wondered if we could pass this off as an installation of "One of these things is not like the other..."

Treasure!!

Ella's favorite exhibits dealt with coins and jewels and treasures, although she was really excited about the displays of costumes, er, outfits, as well.  There was a section on commerce, and Ella was delighted to learn that, even in the late 1800s, merchants offered gifts with purchase, although she still prefers her precious Kinder eggs and nanos, thank goodness. Victorian Tobler chocolate trading cards are slightly harder to come by.

Alex enjoyed a diorama of a battle scene (with the title overhead helpfully translated into English as "Glory and Booty!"). The museum had tiny binoculars mounted outside the diorama, and he spent ages peering in while Ella was pouring over her coins, playing "I Spy" with himself.

Taking a little robot break

But both kids especially liked an installation about Swiss banking.  In addition to samples of Swiss money, they had put up a bank of safety deposit boxes, some of which were ajar.  The kids were allowed to break in and pull out boxes, each with something different and whimsical: sparkly jewelery, old family photos, a gun wrapped in a handkerchief, a dossier on James Bond circa Goldfinger, a brochure for the Bank of Switzerland.

A good portion of the museum is devoted to furniture, and the modern furniture exhibit doubled as a family lounge, with a little dollhouse for the kids and a table with puzzles and art supplies.  Over and over, I appreciate how Zurich accommodates the little ones.

I feel the need to confess that, even though we had three little children with us, I was the only one who managed to set off the alarms in the museum.  I swear, I only touched the wall, but it was a wired wall. I got a little finger wag from the guard and wide eyes from the kids.  At least they learned from my mistake.

Joey's barbed commentary
on the Landesmuseum

As much fun as the kids are, Dennis and I were a little sad that we couldn't spend more time translating and deciphering the exhibits.  There was a lot to learn there. Did'ja know, Swiss women weren't allowed to vote until 1971. (Only two democratic nations, Portugal and Luxembourg, took longer to grant women's suffrage.) That gives me a slightly different lens through which to view this Hausfrau experience.