Autumn 2013 Holidays Week 01…

We are currently on Autumn School Holidays! 3 whole weeks of no school! Nice! But what do we do with the kid?? Well, we travel all over Switzerland, which is pretty much what we do for our Spring and Autumn hols here.

So Week 01 was a take it easy week. (See Week 02 and Week 03.) We did the housework – yep, my little boy did his share of keeping the house clean and tidy 🙂 And to reward ourselves we went to see a Swiss movie, the S’Chline Gspängst, with some friends at the local cinema here in Solothurn. Something which we have not yet done in all the years of living here cos we always travel to some big city to watch a movie in English. BUT this was a Swiss story, which of course, had to be watched in Swiss German. The title translated is The Little Ghost. And it was a delightful story although i have been informed by Swiss friends that the movie only very loosely follows the book it is based on. What was wonderful was that it was shown at a little cinema which reminded me of how cinemas were when i was a kid. i tried to get a feel of it in a photo but it doesn’t quite come across as you can see below.

Then we spent a lazy day at home. The next day it was off to the beautiful lakeside village of Brienz for a short walk and our Grinberg treatment. We discovered this lovely new climbing structure by the lake. If you are ever in Switzerland, you have to make a stop in Brienz. Take in the amazing views and ride the steam train up the little mountain. The lakes and the mountains join to make this an amazing village to visit. We were last here when we visited the only Swiss Violin-Making School.

We were to meet the husband for dinner so we took a slow walk along the river in our town and guess what we found! An open bookcase (Offener Buchschrank). i had written about the Little Free Library about a year back and wished we had one and now we do!! The boy happily found a book of animal stories to bring home.

Friday was the exciting day for my boy – we took his best friend along with us and went to the Swiss Knife Valley Visitor Center in Brunnen, where the boys got to assemble their very own standard/basic Swiss knife.

It is a nice little place, not very big. There are a couple of historical films to watch. We found those very informative. The store took up a fair amount of the 3 floors. The museum is down below, not very big but again interesting, there is even a story corner where you can listen to 6 stories of how a Swiss Army Knife saved the day. And some interesting knives on display.

They sell a lovely gift set which i think makes a unique gift. The set consists of all the parts you need to make your own Swiss Knife. The only catch is that the person getting the gift would have to come to the Visitor Center in Brunnen to actually assemble it.

Saturday was spent at the Suisse Toy Fair in Bern, which we have gone to every year since i discovered it a few years ago. It was nice and crowded as usual. Of course, my little guy headed straight for the digital games zone and we stayed there for at least an hour if not more. Then it was lunch and the boys headed to the remote control section and i went to the crafting section. i loved that they added this section a couple of years back. i had fun walking through the small but interesting section, drooling over all the tools and materials which i can’t afford 😉 Unfortunately, the little boy felt unwell after that. So we had him rest in the quiet zone (it is so thoughtful of them to create such an area), while we did a quick sweep of the rest of the fair (we were almost finished by then).

i will blog about the second week soon.

syc