Schloss Lenzburg

Alex decided this was a good morning for continuing his toilet training lessons with Joey, standing by and giving some critical insights: "Hm.  So, Joey? You don't get to press the button unless you make the water yellow. And the big seat is only for the girls.  You have to move it when you go potty.  You don't want the girls to get wet bottoms, do you?" Psst, Joey: the answer is "No."

Ella, too, had plans for her brother: "Joey, do you realize that Mother's Day is ALMOST HERE? Joey? What are you going to give momma for Mother's Day?"

Yes, Joey, only 22 shopping days left...no, make that 20, since the stores aren't open on Sundays.  And I require many, many gifts!

Joey, tired of being bossed, hid in his
room with his books after that.

Joey looked around his room and noticed his little finger puppets.  "Um...look! Puppets!"

"Oh, good idea, Joey! You can make her a puppet show for Mother's Day.  Okay. The first step is to make a stage. Come on!"

"Ella, look! Shark! Rawr!" said Joey called, hopefully, after his quickly disappearing sister.  Sorry, Joey. You don't get to play with puppets any more.  Not with less than a month until the BIG DAY.

I had to cut the production short this morning, because I had big big plans for the family. Lenzburg Castle, about twenty-five kilometers west of Zürich, is open for the season.

According to the placard at the entrance of the castle, "the early history of Lenzburg is lost in the mists of time. It is thought that it was built as a refuge fort in the early Middle Ages."  Their best guess is that the castle was built around 1000 AD. It transferred ownership from the Count of Lenzburg to the Counts of Kyburg (who owned the neighboring castle that we saw when we first moved here) to the Hapsburgs.

But none of them, I'd wager, put the castle to as good a use as the Lenzburg Castle Foundation.  They've made this stunning building into an extremely child-friendly museum.

The castle, with foundation
built into the mountain.

The castle is high on a hill, but there is an hourly shuttle van that takes public-transport users most of the way up.  The shuttle stop was next to a median with some grazing sheep and their babies, which had Joey and Alex (and yes, me, too) hopping with excitement. But we decided it was better to channel that energy into climbing the rest of the way to the castle.

It wasn't a painful walk at all, though: the kids made a game of walking along the retaining wall bordering the road, and then, halfway to the castle, there was a little village of tiny wooden playhouses.  The kids began fortifying immediately, gathering sticks for swords and selecting their domains. But although each boy was lord of his manor, it was clear they were both subject to a queen.

Alex laid claim to the Ritterhaus and drew up the drawbridge

And Joey took over the Kornhaus

We pulled the kids out of their houses when we started getting hungry for lunch: I'd read that the castle had a nice cafeteria that I was looking forward to visiting.

Alex dearly wanted to use the "little kid drawbridge" instead

Watching the princess

So we hiked the rest of the way up, stashed our stroller, and had a look around the courtyard.  Earlier, we'd noticed wedding guests hiking up to the castle. Half of the courtyard was a beautiful baroque garden, and while we were enjoying the flowers and the view, the wedding party joined us there for photos.  All three kids were thrilled, but especially Joey: "Look! Look mommy! Princess!"  The party had brought a bagpiper and a drummer, and they played while the photos were being taken.  Throughout the rest of our tour through the castle, we would, from time to time, hear faint strains of bagpipes. Joey would freeze each time, his ears perked: "Princess!"

From the courtyard we found our way to the cafeteria, which had an terrace surrounded by a second garden and another stunning view. Our server was a giggly older lady who brought me the most delicious vegetable soup that I've enjoyed in ages, and Dennis and I split a beer while the kids ate at their own table and then played in the grass, running off the ice cream that they talked us into buying.

The gardens next to the cafe.

And then the real fun began. We started off in a section that dealt with the castle's function as a fortress, and they had several dioramas. The kids were understandably disturbed by the gore,

and much preferred the large game room below, and settled down to play Dominoes and cards for as long as we let them.

From there we passed through the gift shop, chock-a-block with dress-up clothes and child-sized weapons (and oh, didn't the boys want little wooden swords!) into a please-touch room.  There were about a dozen little exhibits, all very appealing, but we spent most of our time at two.  The first was a station where you could cut out and stitch your own dice bag and decorate dice for a game medieval dice game.

While I made a few little bags for the kids, they happily bypassed the instructions: Ella found a blank sheet of paper and used the little blocks to create pieces and custom dice and designed a game of her own.  Of course she did.  And Alex and Joey happily colored little pictures on as many blocks as we allowed them to have.

Well, I know how to follow directions, at least.

We also really got a kick out of the exhibit that had a set of armor to try on.  Ella tried to play it cool with ten pounds hanging on her head ("Oh, it's actually quite comfortable.")

And Joey discovered that peekaboo is even more fun when mom is wearing gauntlets and a hinged helm.

From this atrium, we worked our way back through the castle. Alex started getting tired and grumpy, so we had to rush through the residential rooms, which punched up with ambient audio tracks and projected ghostly hands playing cards in the game room, chopping carrots in the kitchen, and signing papers in the study.  

Seriously: this was a cool castle!

We rested on the top floor, which they'd set aside for a large play area.  They had racks and drawers of dress-up clothing and paste jewels and shields and swords for the kids to dress in, and Ella darted toward these immediately.  Even though she quickly found the perfect outfit, she was slightly self-conscious of playing dress-up, and did her best to lure the boys into join her.

Alex had no energy pretending.  He hid at the art table and decompressed with his sequins and cardboard and glue.  And Joey found a little play house that he just refused to leave.  For some reason he was fascinated by the iron, and spent a good twenty minutes pretending to use it.

Taking a well-earned break from
his ironing for a quick peak outside.

But when I finally convinced him that the clothes were flat enough, he did make a beeline for his sister, boldly climbing the tallest tower to find her.

Alex, once he'd collected himself and all the little treasures he'd manufactured, found his way to the little play kitchen. He slaved over that hot fire, carefully adding spices, stirring constantly, and tasting everything twice before serving it to me. 

Joey watched it all with wide eyes and then tried a dish of his own.  When Dennis called that it was time to go, Alex ran off, but Joey looked at me sternly: "Wait, Mommy! Not done!" He had a few more cups to tip into his bowl before he tasted it, nodded, and poured a serving into my bowl. And only after I'd cleaned my plate of invisible food were we allowed to leave.

But we'd saved the best for last.  The basement of the castle is home to a little animatronic dragon named Fauchi: the brochure we were given warned that "those who wish to visit Fauchi, the castle's legendary dragon, must pass a trial of courage...!"  Oh, you should have seen Ella's wide eyes when I read that to her.  Trial of courage?  Bring it on!  I think she was mentally preparing herself to beat the pants off that trial of courage during our entire visit to the castle.

But she was sorely misled: in the entrance to the dragon's lair was a little shadow-puppet movie telling a fairy tale about Fauchi and how he came to live at the castle, and there were many relics and fossils and scientific charts of dragon anatomy...but there were no spells to be learned or potions to be mixed or weapons to be forged. Said Ella: "This is a pretty disappointing trial. Clearly it wasn't designed by children."

But the boys, oh, the were fascinated. Leading up to the dragon's lair was a dark hall, and smoke pouring out from under a doorway.

 And the dragon itself had them transfixed.  Whenever the dragon roared, the floor and walls vibrated, and both boys responded by roaring back before collapsing into giggles.  "Little dragon cute!" Joey told me. "Rawr!"

Joey, of course, slept all the way home, and Alex and I read stories while Ella read a Diary of a Whimpy Kid, which she finds just fascinating.  I read over her shoulder for a little while, and she proudly offered to loan it to me.

But, when it came time to hand over the books, she had one misgiving.

"Um, mom? There's a chance these books will shock you.  They say the word 'fart' a lot in the books. And sometimes the brothers push each other.  So there's potty talk and some naughty behavior, and I know you don't like either of those things.  I thought I should warn you, because I didn't want you to be too disturbed when you came to those parts."

Oh, my little would-be dragon-slayer. She's protecting my delicate sensibilities!