A visit to Atzmännig

The Sunday after the Centennial party we still had the rental car (we couldn't return it until Monday morning).  While we were at the party we asked for recommendations of places to go that were hard to get to by public transportation.  One of the suggestions that sounded like fun was Atzmännig, "home of Switzerland's first and most attractive giant slide."  This is how Little Geek Girl described it to the Swiss friends we met for coffee on Friday.  

1.  You ride up the hill on these cable cars that are open.

2.  They put sleds on the back of the cable cars.

3.  You ride down a big slide.

4.  The sleds go "clickety clack" down the slide.

Our Swiss friend immediately guessed that it was Atzmännig.  She grew up on the other side of the Zürichsee and Atzmännig was a popular school trip destination.  

As we were getting ready to leave we heard from our friends that had suggested the place to us.  Apparently their kids had woke up and insisted on going also.  The more the merrier!  

We had about an hour's drive.  We had directions from the website and Google maps, but even more helpful was the navigation ability of Zürich Daddy Geek's iPhone.  Yes, he now has an iPhone and I have to admit, using it to navigate was quite fun.

Here are ZDG and LGG taking the lift to the top.

A view of the slide from the lift.

And here we are arriving at the bottom.

Little Geek Girl and her friends.

On the way to lunch, we passed by the "Nautic-Jet".  For CHF 2 you sit in a little car that gets pulled up to the top of a slope, is released, and you land in the water.  Here are the geeks in various states of flight.

ZDG at the top.

Here I am midway down.  (It is important to post before your blog partner does so that embarrassing pictures of yourself are not posted).

And LGG in flight.  She was actually the first of the three of us to ride.  Apparently there was just a little squeak from her at the top, but otherwise, she was as brave as she always is.

Afterwards we had a nice stroll to one of the restaurants about 30 minutes away.  The service was slow, but when the food arrived we all enjoyed our rösti, alpermagroni, and spaetzle.  Afterwards, some of us waddled and others skipped back down for more sliding and fun.