Lenzburg Castle - 30min drive

Lenzburg Castle courtyard

My 2 year old and I just spent a fun morning at Lenzburg Castle, just outside Baden, about 30 min from Zurich. According to the marketing material, this castle is one of the oldest and more important hilltop castles in Switzerland. It is also home to Fauchi, an animatronic dragon that terrified my son, but is probably lots of fun for the older ones. The castle museum has lots of rooms set up to show what it would be like to live in the castle - rather nicely done in my opinion. At the top of the castle, there is a children's "museum", which has a craft area, dress-up, dungeon, tower lounge, wooden castle maze, and a play area for the little ones with blocks, books, stuffed animals, etc. For lunch, there's a small cafeteria with a lovely outside garden (shown the two photos on the right). The cafe has several dragon picture books for the kiddies to read while they wait for the food. On the walk up to the castle, there is a play area with several kid-size wood houses, labled things like Kornhaus, etc. In addition to the castle grounds and gardens, you can stroll on several walking paths outside the castle (see map in parking lot).

Cafe garden; lounging in the tower of the childrens' museum.

Entrance to castle and museum is adults CHF9, children over 4 CHF4. By car, take the A1 past Baden, then take the Lenzburg exit and follow the "Schloss" signs. When you get to the castle, you'll first see a big parking lot and it seems like you can't drive further. But if you continue up the road, there's another smaller lot on the left that's slightly closer to the castle. For public transportation, the bus lets off in the parking lot, so you won't have to walk that far. http://www.ag.ch/lenzburg/de/pub/