Swiss parks and play grounds

You know, before we moved here, I was scouring blogs on the internet of American moms living in Switzerland.  I ate up every bit of information I could find on anything about kids and the Swiss culture.  I remember reading one sarcastic blog post about being a parent in Switzerland, and regarding playgrounds, she made the point that there's not much at most said "playgrounds" and usually there quite dangerous for U.S. standards.   (From here-"You realize the one and only swing at the park is always taken...You realize no matter what park you go to, it’s designed for 7-year-olds and the one and only swing is still taken)

I can confirm that in part, those things are true.  Many play grounds are really meant for older kids and scare the heck out of toddler moms since the toddlers are of course wanting to do everything the older kids are doing (zip lines at some play grounds?! tall metal slides with maybe 4 inches of lip on the sides?! No baby swings?!).   When we first got here, I went to a couple parks and felt slightly disappointed compared to some of the parks we regularly visited in the States (or really, just Cook Park which was a half mile walk from our house).

BUT now that I've been here for over a year, I've explored more and I've found that there are many amazing Swiss parks for kids.  Some are similar to the parks in the States, I'm sure, but others are quite different.

First, you've seen plenty of play areas up in the mountains.  I think in general (except for most indoor sit-down restaurants-which we avoid-), Switzerland is quite family friendly.

[This may be a completely odd post to you, but for a mother with two toddlers, this is my life...visiting and finding new parks, the closer to home, the better.]

They have tons of these big swings which the kids love.  The below photos are from the town pool here which also happens to have a fun trampoline thing.

Here's one of the apartment play grounds (which doesn't belong to our apartment, but seems okay for us to visit every now and again since it's not gated).

Below is another apartment play ground.  Typical equipment seen: a see saw, one (maybe two) swings-not baby swings, ping pong tables, and a sand/gravel pit.

And I think this one below belongs to a church.  We found it one day while we were out walking.

Here's a small public park we found just a few minutes from our place.

This park below was AMAZING.  It was about an hour away at Mainau Island in Germany.  It was huge with water features, sensory things, and tons of play and climbing structures.  (I know that this isn't a "Swiss" park, but I had to share it!)

I've saved our favorite for last.  It's my favorite because it's only a mile from our house.  We go here once or twice a week.  It's an animal park, so not only do they have multiple play structures (two big new ones in the last month were just built!) but they also have animals-two donkeys, goats, birds, ducks, and geese.

It seems that there are new baby goats every summer.  This was one of our first visits to this park.

He loves the ducks and geese because they are so loud!

This is a nice water/sand playing area which is why I usually have to change their clothes when we get back home :-)

We recently went to a "Kids Fest" at this park where we were able to go into the goat's enclosure, pet the new baby goats, and Maddie got her first face painting.

Below is one of the two new play structures just built.  Both the kids LOVE it.  Both the new structures are really beautiful, like woodworking pieces of art.  They use so much natural wood for the structures, it really has a different look than the plastic play grounds (but of course, who cares as long as the kids like it!).

P.S. We are super excited for this weekend...Uncle Aaron and Aunt Christin (and their sweet friends) are coming to visit and we're taking them to the mountains!!! Eeek!