A visit to Rapperswil

Today's blog post will be mostly told in pictures. We had a long, full, excellent day exploring more of Switzerland!

We boarded a train to Rapperswil.

Map of our route across Lake Zurich.

Joey riding the train (photo by Mary)

Crossing Lake Zurich (photo by Mary, from the train)

Katie enjoying views from the train (photo by Mary)

In Rapperswil, view of the castle in the background.

I'm having trouble embedding video, so try this link to a vlog Mary made of us walking the old streets of Rapperswil.

Outside of the church (photo by Mary)

A short exterior video tour by Mary, with self-produced sound track.

Family photo in one of the exterior archways of the castle.

View from the castle looking over Lake Zurich towards Pfaffikon, showing the bridge we crossed.

The kids got a close up look at some of the deer that live on the castle grounds.

A short video of the kids playing on the small playground on the castle grounds.

Got one of all three of them in the air at once!

"Everyone stand together in the doorway for a picture!" ......or not!

There was an organist playing beautiful music inside the otherwise empty chapel. Also Mary dances. Check out the video.

Interesting wooden spiral staircase inside the chapel; there was one on each side.

Joey and Lily climbing a staircase up towards the castle.

Large leaves.

After the castle we visited Jucker Farm, where Mary found "the flattest pumpkin I've ever seen!"

Mary took a selfie from on top of the climbing structure at the farm playground.

Joey's selfie.

An interesting play structure.

Looking at the goats.

There were lots of squash sculptures of things related to ancient Rome. I didn't photograph all of them, but here are some gladiators and an aqueduct.

"Driving" a tractor.

Here is a link to a video in which Malorie makes a pitiful attempt to catch a goat which she accidentally let out of the goat pen. Spoiler: she doesn't catch it. Also, during the filming of this video nobody was watching Katie. Oops. Luckily she didn't wander too far off and we quickly found her. Without her hat. So then we had to hunt for that too. When I asked her where it was, all she would say was, "I don't like hat!" We found it though.

Snacking on watermelon while we walked to the playground near Malorie's house.

The playground is small, but fun and interesting.
"There are only three things to play on, but they are all good!" say the kids.

The playground is missing a few safety bars in key locations, so I was a little bit nervous. But Katie was able to climb up and down the ladder to the top level all on her own, and seemed to have the sense not to try to climb through this gap and fall to certain injury.

Peek-a-boo!

I see you!

This isn't the first time we've found ping pong tables in playgrounds - maybe we should buy a set of paddles!

Here's Katie going down the big slide. She didn't want to at first, but after watching the other kids doing it over and over she finally decided to give it a try, and totally loved it!

Mary shows off her gymnastics skills.

Tomorrow morning we are waking up early to take a train to Geneva! Stay tuned for updates on our adventures into the French speaking portion of the country!