Expat Adventure: Things found in the country

Our expedition to the nearby town of Avenches last month (you can read about it here) inspired me to explore more of the "boring" countryside we live in. A few miles away from us we discovered this old fortress dating from 200 BC.

Another day we visited the town of Gletterens where an example of a Neolithic settlement has been set up.

I read about some WWI man made caves that are carved into the sandstone near our house. Jack and I set out to find them but it wasn't easy. After driving for almost an hour (what should have been a 15 minute drive), we kept reaching dead end roads when the map said I needed to keep driving. Finally we got out and decided to hike and see what we could find. What we found were lots of stairs

And signs with no information

But finally we found the caves and they were amazing! A little boys dream come true!

All sorts of places to run and hide

Apparently these caves were made in the first world war as fortification for the infantry with machine guns. The interlinking tunnels extend for 200 meters.

Some of the areas were pitch black. I can't imagine ever doing this back in the US where I would be afraid some serial killer was lurking.

But here in Switzerland that sort of stuff is rare. So we put on our headlights and explored

I'm sure this is where they had a machine gun positioned

My brave boy going down in to the tunnel

Some shots of the caves from the outside

A picture of how the guns were set up in the caves

Of course, after all the running around this little guy was so tired he wanted me to carry him back up all the stairs. Who can resist this face?

Definitely not the little girls

Jack has the smooth moves of his dad

Jack and his best friend Emily at the Natural History Museum

No trip to the museum with 2 toddlers in tow is ever complete without both kids rolling on the floor

And running through the aisles

Jack and a goat at the Bern zoo

Best part of the zoo (according to Jack) was the big octopus slide

It rains a lot here and I have been searching for an indoor play area for the last 3 months. I finally found one this week right near our house (well 30 minutes away, but when you are in the country that seems close enough)

It was amazing! It even had a rocket ship that Jack loved.

And rides

And climbing walls

And bouncy slides

Trampolines

And a ball pit. I signed up for their frequent visitor program since I know we will be back this winter...maybe sooner

This past weekend we had great weather so we all ventured out for a "short" hiking trip. First we drove to a tiny little town for lunch

From the restaurant we started our hike along the river

It was an amazingly beautiful hike. It took us 3 hours (instead of 1.5 mentioned on the trail information), but we had a toddler "hiking" with us so that was okay. The big time waster was when we tried to catch a train back to the restaurant and found out that the train only departs 1x per hour. So we waited 45 minutes.

Then we had to catch another train and we missed it by 5 minutes. So we had to wait another hour. While we were waiting we decided to get a drink from the vending machine and noticed that this particular machine also sells pregnancy tests and condoms. Hmmm... never seen that before!

Sunday we took Jack mini golfing for the first time. At first he was frustrated with the whole prospect of hitting the ball with the club. Once we told him to just drop the ball in, then he started having fun.