The Circus Knie

For the past two weeks, I've had my eye on a large white circus tent on the eastern edge of Lake Zürich, and Joey, indignantly, keeps pointing out the large ferris wheel in Bürkliplatz, the one next to the ticket booth for the Knie Family Circus. My stomach isn't up for a spin on their ferris wheel, but I couldn't say no to the circus.  

I'd actually been meaning to get tickets for months, since we visited the Knie Children's Zoo, but didn't actually get around to it until last Wednesday.  Waiting until the last minute was not a brilliant move: we got five of the last dozen seats available for the whole weekend, way up in the very upper, outer edge of the stands.  But still...a circus! I haven't been to a circus since my parents took us to Ringling Brothers when I was tiny.  I wondered if it could live up to my cotton-candy-coated memories.

On the tram: my kids might be getting tired of
having their pictures taken every blessed day.

 Both of them.

Our tickets were for the three o'clock matinee.  In the spirit of "getting there is half the fun," we took a slightly long route to get there, but a pretty one, taking us through the Zürich's arboretum and past a swimmable beach, both of which I'd been wanting to see.

Flea market

It seems like there's always something going on in Bürkliplatz, the open plaza on the northern-most tip of Lake Zürich.  Today it was a massive, city-wide garage sale: it seemed everyone had their own little blankets hopefully laid out, with their few dozen pieces of junk.  Or, if you're Ella, treasure.  I gave her a five minutes to drool over the paste jewelry and seashells and used shoes before we left for our walk.

The Arboretum was worth seeing, and I'm glad I put it off until now, when the trees are in full leaf.  Zürich seems to specialize in wide-open green spaces, and this park was paradise for kids, with lots of low limbs for them to climb on and large trees to play under.

The kids ran ahead to go exploring beneath the largest
beech tree that I've ever seen.  

Inside the beech tree: gorgeous.

Joey, the intrepid.

The kids were really excited about the circus: Ella made up a little song about the pretty girls and animals and acrobats that we were going to see. And their excitement peaked when the circus tent came into view.  But, weirdly, although it was only a little over an hour until the show started, the tent and grounds were mostly empty.  The Swiss may be known for their punctuality, but they generally don't bother showing up early.  I've noticed this in movies, especially, where the doors to the cinema don't open any earlier than five minutes before the start of the show.

But the Circus Knie opens their menagerie to the public before their shows, and so we passed some time getting a very close look at the stars of the afternoon.

Separated by a very thin wire.  There was a sign next to her, saying to
please keep children two meters away from the elephant enclosure. 

I understand that this circus is the largest and oldest in Switzerland, the troop having been together in some form or other, under the Knie Family dynasty, for over two hundred years.  They tour all summer long across Switzerland, but they start their tour here in Zürich, with three weeks of mostly sold-out shows.

But, for Switzerland's largest circus, it felt...small.  Our back-row nosebleed seats were actually only eighteen rows back, which I would have realized if I'd actually paid attention to the seating chart. So they were actually wonderful chairs: since we were in the back row, we could hoist our kids without compunction so that they could see over the heads of the the adults in front of them.

And sweets! What's a circus without sweets?

The circus had every single element that Ella had hoped for: trapeze artists and a tightrope walker, animals and clowns.  But, I'm sorry to say, I don't thing she enjoyed much of the show. She had something of a panic attack at intermission: she said that the bright and flashing lights and darkness kept confusing her, and that the tent was too hot (it was) and that she needed to have some fresh air and sunlight. She was overwhelmed, I guess.  Eventually she figured out how to calm herself, turning around every once in a while to take peeks at the sunshine through the cracks in the tent behind us. I'm glad she figured that out, because I really didn't know what to do for her, poor girl,

Joey and Alex, however, thought the show was just grand...although Joey fell asleep just after the elephants and didn't wake up until almost the end.  But the elephants: they were worth staying awake for.  There were three of them, and after showing off their massive strength, pushing round 700 kg logs,  one walked out holding a large bag, out of which popped a young boy, perhaps all of Alex's five years. (I suspect one of the trainers was the boy's mother.) After he held up his tiny cane and elephant hook, the adults cleared the ring and left him to chirp commands to the elephant.  Eventually, the boy ended up curled up inside the elephant's trunk, carried out of the ring. At this point Dennis leaned over and whispered, "Well, you'll never be 'cool mom' now."  And, almost simultaneously, on the other side of me, Ella breathed "No fair!"

Half of the llama troupe, before the show.

They had some beautiful liberty horses, and some even more impressive liberty llamas, with brown- and cream-colored llamas running in concentric circles and making patterns and walking on their hind legs across the ring. I had no idea llamas could be trained.

But, if any circus could do it, I suppose it would be this one.  Switzerland has stringent animal protection laws, and the Swiss Animal Protection board has given this circus excellent ratings and has applauded the reciprocally friendly relationships between the trainers and the animals.

On the walk home--just a really pretty park.

Dennis and I had a great time, but the show was just a touch too long for squirmy kids: particularly the clown acts, which were, unfortunately, all depended on spoken jokes. Ella started quietly pulling out her book every time a clown walked on the stage.

In the end, it was 6:00 by the time we burst from the tent, all three kids begging for water, and, I think, even more eager to stretch their legs.  The kids ran almost the whole way to the tram stop, lapping up the last bits of this beautiful day.