Living in CH with a 3 Year Old

At times I feel extremely limited in my ability to get out and see CH. When you have a 3 year old, their only real desire is to head to the Spielplatz and swing or jump or slide. To them, that's fun. Not spending four hours on a trans-alp train, or visiting a museum, or hiking even. So we've had a lot of good family time - definitely not a bad thing.

But I learned from a co-worker about an "easy" hiking trail called the Muggestutz. Basically it's a hiking trail for children and you can follow along with a story about some Dwarfs as you walk the trail. And along the trail are places the kids can investigate, climb on or through or whatever. It looked pretty cute. And it looked like a good opportunity to join in the typical Swiss pastime of hiking.

Long story short, the "theme" of the trail does not quite match up with the skill required to navigate the paths. We made it, but barely. I ended up carrying a sleeping and bruised boy for a third of it. Kids were biffing it all over the place. I watched one boy do a complete face plant at one point. It was some rough walking at times.

But along the way were picnic spots where families were cooking meats and such. One family had two strollers. No idea how they got them up there. We saw cows up close, horses, drank from the fresh mountain water fountains, snuck into little huts, climbed up ladders. It was a hoot. We had a blast and were VERY tired by the time we mad it back home.

So enough of the verbiage. Here is our story in pictures.



We rode to the top in 3 gondolas: 1 large one that leaves every 30 minutes and 2 smaller ones that run continuously. Basically the mountain is a ski resort and the trails go up and down the ski mountain.



After reaching the top we decided that Noah was due some well-earned play time - we had survived 2 trains and 3 gondolas. Luckily, right at the top of the hiking path is a fairly nice Spielplatz. All the parents were doing essentially the same thing - letting their kids blow off some steam for making it up the mountain in one piece.



After 15 minutes or so we decided to head off down the trail.



After not very long, we had survived a few stumbles and pinches and trips and came across a picnic area. The expert Swiss families had brought all sorts of delicious meats for grilling. But really we didn't stand out much at all - every family had their share of crankiness. The cows just sat by and were pretty happy everyone was grilling pork. There was firewood stacked for people to use, and maybe 6 or so fire pits. You could get seriously up close to the cows. Them are some BIG cows. We ate our sandwiches, drank our Ovo drink and went on our way.



Right after our food break we came across this little Zwergenhaus. Noah loved it. Except for banging his leg on a rock at one point. It didn't last long though. He was up and climbing around inside the house soon enough.



The view was spectacular. Did I say how awesome the view was? Wow. It was good.



And after making it out of the Zwergenweg we stopped by the restaurant by the gondola and had a drink and a well-deserved popsicle. I was very surprised how good of a mood he was in after being carried asleep down 1/3 of the hike. Truth be told, we actually ditched the hiking path when we could see the chalet and a normal utility road that crossed the Wanderweg. Cheating? I think not. It's hard to carry a 40-pound sleeping lump down a mountain.



After riding the gondola back down the mountain, of course, we spent a little time in the playground. There was a zip-slide and Noah rode it probably 1000 times before we headed back to the train station to head home. He fell asleep hard this evening.