Insel Mainau

As much fun as we were having hanging around at the hotel,

there was even greater fun to be had today.

Waterbirds, everywhere

Autumn is here

When we first moved to Europe, the wife of Dennis's boss insisted that we visit Insel Mainau: it was at the very top of her list of favorites.  "But is it child-friendly," I asked, and she supposed it was: she described it as an island filled with gorgeous gardens to wander around and lovely little places to tuck in and have cake or coffee. That sounded fine....but it turns that out she undersold it, greatly.

Straight off, the island had the wonderful feature of being just a couple of kilometers from our hotel.  We parked our car and walked across a bridge to the island, and I remember thinking that even if that little walk to the island was the best part of the day, it still would have been a day well spent.

We'd gotten an early start, making it to the island just a little after 9:00, and so we had the place all to ourselves for a brief and wonderful time. The Bodensee was so peaceful, and the waters between the Insel and the mainland were covered with resting birds. The kids were already having a grand time: really, all they need is a body of water, of any given size, to keep them happy for hours and hours.

Racing off to look for shells

We eventually coaxed the kids along: the island was large, and, when you're shepherding three kids, you just never know how much time you have.  We didn't need to worry, not yet: the kids kept running ahead and then running back, to tell us about every flower bed and topiary that they discovered

But in spite of their reconnaissance, Dennis and I were the ones to notice the playground first. The first glimpse had them jumping up down, calling out "I call this house! This one is mine!" And then they noticed that the playground stretched on further, and further, to better and more exciting equipment.  And on, and on...It was the best playground we'd seen all year.  And you know that's saying a lot.

The first section of the playground, with cute little houses

You know how much I love this kind of stuff, so you'll have to forgive me.  I'm about to show you a great many pictures of some most excellent playground equipment.

A new kind of swing

Dennis was rather fond of the wooden pigs

A beautiful play area, fashioned like a beaver dam, surrounded by giant rushes and cattails

Joey was determined to keep up with Ella and Alex, every step of the way. This little house had sticks hanging from chains from the rafters, and these clattered musically when you pushed through them.  There was a larger version of the same, elsewhere in the playground, except the hanging sticks were as tall as Dennis and as thick as my arm.  The made a wonderful clatter.

The middle playground: above those fun yellow strings, in which Joey loved hiding, is an upper story, a dark room with a few ear trumpets mounted in the wall: you were supposed to close your eyes and listen through these to the sounds of nature.  I tried it, and heard the water on the lake, the cawing of a crow...and the shrieking of little Joey, calling to his brother to "Wait for me!"

The fartherst playground had many bridges spanning a foot-deep lake, and also this most excellent ferry raft...

And punting rafts, too!

The boss's wife said she supposed the island was kid-friendly; I couldn't imagine going to the island without a kid.  How sad it be to visit without a child as your free pass to scramble around on the play structures or to push around on the punting rafts.

The latter were everyone's favorites.  The kids spent ages on them, calling "Ahoy" to each other, tossing each other ropes with a request for aid in docking, and helping each other mount rescues for dropped punting sticks (which floated: clever).

Indeed, later in the day, when the playground filled up, there were a few adults who sheepishly took a quick turn turn on the digger, or gave the archimedes screw a few twists, but the water rafts constantly commandeered by happy kids, and the childless grown-ups could only look on jealously from the shore.

But that was much later in the day.

We let the kids play for quite some time, but we didn't let them get their fill.  There was a restaurant right next to the playground, and we reasoned that we could come back and have a meal, and after that the kids could finish playing.  And that promise of return would be the carrot that would get the children across the island and back.

Not that we needed any such bribe: the rest of the island was pretty great, too.

A momma and her ducklings

There were a few giant flower sculptures in the beginning, but most of the gardens were more simple: just gorgeous beds of flowers, tucked among well-established trees.  The arboretum on this island was started over a century and a half ago, by the Swedish royalty who called Mainau their home for many generations.

There were also sculptures that had recently been installed across the island, and the kids were welcomed to play on a few of these. The one above, a shallow arch, was called "Verbindung," but Dennis joked that it should have been called "Hey Mom! Watch this!" We walked past it several times, and the kids never got tired of running up the slope and then jumping off (Ella) or sliding down the other side.

There were several long avenues of trees of different species around the island.  Apparently there was once an avenue of mulberry trees, but the tree shown on the left is the last survivor.  This and the other mulberries were planted with purpose: a countess had them installed so that their leaves could be food for silkworms, to provide the silk for her daughter's wedding gown.

The boys, taking a break after running up several flights of stairs

"Race ya, Dad!" I love the look of Joy on Alex's face.

 Along the center of the island is an upper crest: we climbed it and walked (or raced, for Dennis and Alex) the length.

Hay stacks and sunshine: I remembered today how much I love fall.  And I wish I could have bottled the scent of the air.

The Italian Rose garden

 It was past noon by the time we'd walked the across the island, reaching Schloß Mainau on the far end.  Our map said that there was food to be had there, so we went inside the castle looking for lunch.

In the castle, there were some women demostrating canning techniques, with jars and jars of different preserves on display, like the artwork they truly were.  And there was a little café, selling coffee and cake, but nothing more nutritious than that.  As nice as cake would have been for lunch, after our ice-cream dinner last night, we figured we couldn't quite justify it.

Island-grown apples for sale

Luckily, they also had boxes and boxes of apples set out: for sale, three for a euro.  And I just happened to have one euro and three hungry kids.  So the little ones had a snack, to give them some energy for pressing on.

Happily, the next restaurant was just perfect for us, with pretty seating outside and a kid's menu, besides.

Dennis, in a fit of admirable restraint, left me to order the schnitzel and got himself the "Fitness Teller."  But leave it to the Germans: the so-called heathly plate was a salad awash in Ranch dressing, with deep-fried fish on the side.

Lunch was as peaceful as it could be with three tired and hungry kids: Joey and I kept busy putting together a puzzle, Dennis and Alex played a game, and Ella lost herself in her book for a while. I'm not sure why, but when we left, the waiter gave us a large box of jumbo sidewalk chalk, inviting us to use it on the island, even, if we wanted.  Full of hot cocoa and in possession of a parting gift, the kids were back in high spirits and ready to re-cross the island.

Along the lower part of the island is the flower path.  In the spring, the island is a sea of tulips; in summer, it's all about the roses (and, apparently, the vast crowds, too).  But I think we visited the island in the best season of all. Autumn belongs to the dahlias.

There were one hundred seventy-six different breeds of dahlias in the long garden bed that stretched the lower length of the island. Stunning.

Past the gardens was a little farm, with goats and bunnies to feed and pet, and ponies to ride for a price of a dollar.  But my three were too eager to get back to the playground to spend any time on the animals today.

I did force one last stop on them before letting them return to their Spielplatz: on the northern end of the island was a Schmetterlinghaus, a butterfly house.  And who doesn't love buterflies?

Well, apparently my kids: they groused plenty when I told them where we were going.

Alex and Joey, peering out from behind a waterfall

A butterfly shares Ella's love of a good book

But remember this: momma knows best! Of course the kids loved it. It was a wonderful greenhouse, with some gorgeous butterflies, several of which were of species I'd never seen before.  I didn't get a good picture of the most interesting specimen, a glasswinged butterfly, with wings that look like transluscent glass surrounded by wrought iron.

I do think it was the largest butterfly house I've ever seen, but  it was hard to tell, with all of the fun, twisty-turny paths and bridges that wove around the internal ponds and waterfalls. To Ella's delight, there were turtles swimming throughout, as well.

But my favorite part was the beautiful display of live cocoons.

On the bottom right, you'll see a newly-hatched Atlas moth: the largest species of moth, they can be up to a foot in wingspan.  But they only live about a week, a fact that caused tears to well up in Ella's eyes.

We quickly dispelled her intimations of mortality by returning to the playground. We told Ella and Alex they could babysit their little brother, but only as long as they could keep him from falling in the water.  Dennis and I settled in with our afternoon coffee, but we quickly realized we couldn't stay out of line of sight when we heard Alex call out "Hey, Joey! Come over here! Jump from raft to raft across the water! Come on! You can do it!"

Amazingly, Joey wasn't the one to get wet.  That distinction fell to Ella, who accidentally stuck her leg in the water.  But after a few minutes of rage and indignation, she (thank goodness) decided to shuck her shoes and get back in there and have fun.

By this time, the playground was full.  Ella was all over the place, trying to experience everything at once.  Joey steadfastly ran circuits over some tricky rope bridges, trying to master them, I suppose.  And Alex joyfully hopped from raft to raft, hitching rides across the water and back again.

Dennis and I were kind to ourselves and used ice cream as bait to lure the kids away from the playground and back off the island. I'm certain that Joey, at least, would have been asleep before we reached the car if we hadn't given him that extra sugar. It was a close thing even with a dose of chocolate.

A zeppelin flying over Konstanz

The cathedral

It was about 4:00 when we left, but we weren't done with those kids, not yet.  We paused long enough to fetch Ella dry shoes and pants from the hotel, and then we took a walk around Konstanz, stopping in the city playground, swinging through the city's cathedral, and then grabbing a take-home dinner on our way back to the hotel.


We had to make sure that the kids were well and truly ready to collapse at the end of the day. And how!