Is it really November? It surely feels like early October with temperatures around 18° C, colored trees and clear blue sky!

With my mother in law staying with us and hence a car available, we decided to enjoy yet another glorious autumn day by visiting the wildlife park in Arth-Goldau. Arth-Goldau is situated beautifully along the Zuger Lake and is the main destination for going up the Rigi. It has already been more than a year since we went there and I always feel a bit sorry that we don’t manage to discover Switzerland more often (but with most of the weekends busy, one PhD salary, two children and no car it is a bit challenging to visit the mountains without doing an overnight stop). All the more was I happy about this great trip today! When we arrived, the sun had just started to make its way through the morning mist, revealing snowy mountains in the background.

In the wildlife park you will find all possible wild animals of Switzerland. The enclosures are big with many trees and rocks. You can see the mountains and deer and mouflons are roaming around freely in most of the park. At the entrance gate deer food is being sold so that you can always attract them if you want to. And since today was a week-day and it is out of season, we were almost alone in the park.

The little one was especially looking forward to the fox and the badger as she knows them from one of her books but she always points out that she has “never ever!” seen one. I am afraid she didn’t really see them today either – we could only see their backs as all of them were sleeping (same with the wolves and the bears). But hey, who wouldn’t lie down for a late morning nap in the sun?

Good for us that we still saw lots of other animals. Said mouflons, for instance, and deer. Lots of deer. A really tall donkey as well. Ravens. Chamois’. Bisons (not sure where to find them exactly in Switzerland). Squirrels. Lynxes. Goats. And, even better, a great playground and many, many rocks to climb on.

The hobbit was, as usual, sleeping away in his pram with a short wake-up period in order to drink (while being surrounded by deer…almost as fancy as his first outdoor lunch) and to change diapers (on a picnic table with deer around him). And the little one was just awesome: no tantrum, to tears during the whole trip! Though, now that I think of it, that’s not entirely true. She cried exactly two times. The first time when the two mouflons she were feeding suddenly turned into more than ten. And the second time when a cheeky deer took the whole food box instead of waiting for the little one to feed it. Both completely understable situations for tears, I think.

two mouflons….

…and an invasion of mouflons.

On the way back, both kids were sleeping and now we are having a quiet afternoon (it is 4:20pm and the sun has already set behind the hills).