Austria
June 17 - July 14, 2009
June 25, 2009 - Ellmi's Zauberwelt
With more rain forecast, we were beginning to doubt we'd ever see sun again. With the goal of seeing all the various kids parks at some point, and Annemarie having loaned us the car for the day, we decided to put on our rain gear and head to Ellmi's Zauberwelt (Ellmi's Magical World). We drove around the mountain to Ellmau to take the lift up, and spent most of the day there until it really started to pour in the afternoon. The one benefit of the drizzle - it was not very crowded!
Ellmi's Zauberwelt consists of an amazing playground around the top of the lift station, a short walk through the woods where magical creatures abound, and a longer walk on the theme of alpine flowers and their healing properties. Samantha was very intrigued by the magical world and even managed to find Ellmi the Frog in his cave along with his hidden treasure.
She was also quite fascinated by the habergeiss. The "habergeiss" is a mythical creature with the body of a chicken, the head of a goat and three legs. It lives in high trees. At night it goes into the people's homes to get all the children who have been bad. Sam had fun pushing the button to make the "habergeiss" talk and tell its story of how a shepherd had been making fun of it and how she had turned him to stone.
Rubby too found a treasure... the geocaching kind of course. And we also had fun on the "in-ground" trampolines... hours of fun! Finally, local volunteers help with free programs for the kids and so Sam got to try her hand at wood carving and made herself a beautiful walking stick which managed to make its way to Canada unharmed, strapped to a backpack and checked as luggage after Airport Security declared it not safe to travel with as hand baggage!
