Sportferien gives Zurich kids two weeks off school in February, and plenty of families stay in town while classmates head for the slopes. These are the plans we'd make for that break: warm museums and pools for the gray days, a forest ice rink and a toboggan run for the cold ones, and a few events on the weekends either side. Here's what we checked, from Technorama to Atzmännig.
Züri Carneval is Zurich's winter carnival, and this is the part built around children. Kids come in costume to a party in the festival tent on Münsterhof in the Old Town, and the next afternoon the carnival parade winds through the city center.
It suits preschool and primary-school kids who like dressing up and a lively crowd. Children who find loud, packed streets hard may prefer the tent party alone.
Six evenings a season, the outdoor Dolder rink turns into a disco: a light show, DJs Steven Sander and Marvellous80 playing hits, and a theme for each night, from a Halloween ghost ride to a Frozen night and a fireworks edition.
It suits kids who can already skate on their own and teens out with friends. Families can book a fondue table in the restaurant overlooking the ice.
Kinder Lesen is Zurich's festival of children's and teen books. About 40 authors, illustrators and publishers bring board books, picture books, chapter books and young adult novels, and kids can meet the people behind their favorites and get a book signed.
It suits families whose kids read in German, from toddlers flipping board books to teens looking for their next novel.
Technorama is a hands-on science center where most exhibits are built to touch and try. Kids spin tops and pendulums in Mechanikum, kick and crank wooden marble runs, play with magnets and currents, and build machines from everyday materials in Tinkering.
Staffed labs let kids run their own chemistry, physics and biology experiments, and an outdoor park opens from late March to late October.
Zoo Zürich covers 27 hectares on the wooded Zürichberg. The Masoala Rainforest is a miniature Madagascar rainforest under one roof, with red ruffed lemurs, Aldabra giant tortoises and an 18-meter treetop walkway.
The Lewa Savanna holds giraffes, white rhinos and Grévy's zebras around baobab trees that double as feeding stations. At the Kaeng Krachan Elephant Park, kids can watch Asian elephants swim past an underwater viewing window.
The Swiss National Museum fills a turreted 1898 building, styled like a French Renaissance chateau, beside the Platzspitz park. Its galleries run from prehistory to the 21st century, with a section on knights, an Armoury Tower and a diorama of the Battle of Murten.
The family exhibition has three themed rooms (an Oriental Palace, a sailing ship and a railway) where kids solve puzzles, dress up and listen to stories.
Alpamare is a water park on the shore of Lake Zurich with 12 slides, from the Triple Slide in the toddler area to the pitch-dark Thriller tube. The wave pool sends waves over 1.2 meters high every half hour, and the outdoor Rio Mare pool has a current to float along.
The 200 m² toddler area has small slides, a paddling pool, a spraying turtle and a tipping water bucket.
Paradisimo is an indoor playground with a climbing labyrinth, a kids ninja gym, a climbing tower, an inflatable slide, trampolines and a neon net, plus a toddler area with its own trampoline. Kids 6 and up can play laser tag.
The parents' lounge sits in the middle of the L-shaped room, so adults can sit with a coffee, a board game or a massage chair and still see the kids.
FLIP LAB Zürich is a trampoline and freestyle hall with 12 zones. Kids warm up, then move between a bungee zone with a harness, an airbag for first flips, a ninja course, a dodgeball court, basketball hoops for trampoline dunks, a wall walk and a trampoline parkour course. Instructors stay on the floor and explain the hall rules before each session. Parents can watch from a terrace overlooking the hall.
An indoor pool hall with a 25-meter lap pool, a learner pool up to 1.5 meters deep, and a 4-meter-deep diving pool with boards at 1, 3 and 5 meters. The 110-meter tube slide is the longest in any indoor pool in the canton of Zurich.
Outside, a big lawn has a wading pool and a grill area for warm days. Private swim schools run children's classes here.
One of Switzerland's largest open-air ice rinks, 6,000 square meters set in the Dolderwald forest. There is room for free skating, ice hockey and Chneble, and you can try Bavarian curling or Lättlischiessen. Rental skates, free kids' helmets and polar bear skating aids help beginners.
Ice discos run with live DJ sets, and a self-service restaurant and winter market sit beside the ice.
Atzmännig is a family leisure area in the Goldingertal valley, with a chairlift up to Alp Atzmännig at 1,200 m. The leisure park has a 700 m toboggan run with tunnels and banked curves, a slide tower with six chutes, mini electric cars, a petting zoo, a playground, and a rope park with eight courses plus three for kids.
Winter brings ski lifts, a sledding run and a snowshoe trail.
Sauriermuseum Aathal shows real dinosaur skeletons, six of them from the museum's own digs, alongside trilobites, a crocodile, flying and marine reptiles, 290 pieces of amber and 108 meteorites. Replicas and models fill in the rest of the age of dinosaurs.
Outside, the DinoGiardino garden has dinosaur models, a dig pit, a slide, a small carousel for toddlers, two grill spots and covered picnic tables.
Knies Kinderzoo is a hands-on zoo run by the Knie circus family since 1962, with about 400 animals from 45 species by Lake Zurich. Kids can feed the elephants, ride ponies and camels, and loop the grounds on the electric zoo tram. Giraffes, cheetahs, penguins and a goat petting area round it out, with free keeper talks and a short animal film through the day.
Urania Observatory is a 51-meter tower at the western edge of the Old Town, opened in 1907 as Switzerland's oldest public observatory. Tours take place in a creaking wooden dome that turns to open a slit to the sky.
Guides explain the planets with screens and computer simulations, and on clear nights kids look through the original 12-tonne Zeiss telescope.
Sportferien gives Zurich kids two weeks off school in February, and plenty of families stay in town while classmates head for the slopes. These are the plans we'd make for that break: warm museums and pools for the gray days, a forest ice rink and a toboggan run for the cold ones, and a few events on the weekends either side. Here's what we checked, from Technorama to Atzmännig.
Züri Carneval is Zurich's winter carnival, and this is the part built around children. Kids come in costume to a party in the festival tent on Münsterhof in the Old Town, and the next afternoon the carnival parade winds through the city center.
It suits preschool and primary-school kids who like dressing up and a lively crowd. Children who find loud, packed streets hard may prefer the tent party alone.
Six evenings a season, the outdoor Dolder rink turns into a disco: a light show, DJs Steven Sander and Marvellous80 playing hits, and a theme for each night, from a Halloween ghost ride to a Frozen night and a fireworks edition.
It suits kids who can already skate on their own and teens out with friends. Families can book a fondue table in the restaurant overlooking the ice.
Kinder Lesen is Zurich's festival of children's and teen books. About 40 authors, illustrators and publishers bring board books, picture books, chapter books and young adult novels, and kids can meet the people behind their favorites and get a book signed.
It suits families whose kids read in German, from toddlers flipping board books to teens looking for their next novel.
Technorama is a hands-on science center where most exhibits are built to touch and try. Kids spin tops and pendulums in Mechanikum, kick and crank wooden marble runs, play with magnets and currents, and build machines from everyday materials in Tinkering.
Staffed labs let kids run their own chemistry, physics and biology experiments, and an outdoor park opens from late March to late October.
Zoo Zürich covers 27 hectares on the wooded Zürichberg. The Masoala Rainforest is a miniature Madagascar rainforest under one roof, with red ruffed lemurs, Aldabra giant tortoises and an 18-meter treetop walkway.
The Lewa Savanna holds giraffes, white rhinos and Grévy's zebras around baobab trees that double as feeding stations. At the Kaeng Krachan Elephant Park, kids can watch Asian elephants swim past an underwater viewing window.
The Swiss National Museum fills a turreted 1898 building, styled like a French Renaissance chateau, beside the Platzspitz park. Its galleries run from prehistory to the 21st century, with a section on knights, an Armoury Tower and a diorama of the Battle of Murten.
The family exhibition has three themed rooms (an Oriental Palace, a sailing ship and a railway) where kids solve puzzles, dress up and listen to stories.
Alpamare is a water park on the shore of Lake Zurich with 12 slides, from the Triple Slide in the toddler area to the pitch-dark Thriller tube. The wave pool sends waves over 1.2 meters high every half hour, and the outdoor Rio Mare pool has a current to float along.
The 200 m² toddler area has small slides, a paddling pool, a spraying turtle and a tipping water bucket.
Paradisimo is an indoor playground with a climbing labyrinth, a kids ninja gym, a climbing tower, an inflatable slide, trampolines and a neon net, plus a toddler area with its own trampoline. Kids 6 and up can play laser tag.
The parents' lounge sits in the middle of the L-shaped room, so adults can sit with a coffee, a board game or a massage chair and still see the kids.
FLIP LAB Zürich is a trampoline and freestyle hall with 12 zones. Kids warm up, then move between a bungee zone with a harness, an airbag for first flips, a ninja course, a dodgeball court, basketball hoops for trampoline dunks, a wall walk and a trampoline parkour course. Instructors stay on the floor and explain the hall rules before each session. Parents can watch from a terrace overlooking the hall.
An indoor pool hall with a 25-meter lap pool, a learner pool up to 1.5 meters deep, and a 4-meter-deep diving pool with boards at 1, 3 and 5 meters. The 110-meter tube slide is the longest in any indoor pool in the canton of Zurich.
Outside, a big lawn has a wading pool and a grill area for warm days. Private swim schools run children's classes here.
One of Switzerland's largest open-air ice rinks, 6,000 square meters set in the Dolderwald forest. There is room for free skating, ice hockey and Chneble, and you can try Bavarian curling or Lättlischiessen. Rental skates, free kids' helmets and polar bear skating aids help beginners.
Ice discos run with live DJ sets, and a self-service restaurant and winter market sit beside the ice.
Atzmännig is a family leisure area in the Goldingertal valley, with a chairlift up to Alp Atzmännig at 1,200 m. The leisure park has a 700 m toboggan run with tunnels and banked curves, a slide tower with six chutes, mini electric cars, a petting zoo, a playground, and a rope park with eight courses plus three for kids.
Winter brings ski lifts, a sledding run and a snowshoe trail.
Sauriermuseum Aathal shows real dinosaur skeletons, six of them from the museum's own digs, alongside trilobites, a crocodile, flying and marine reptiles, 290 pieces of amber and 108 meteorites. Replicas and models fill in the rest of the age of dinosaurs.
Outside, the DinoGiardino garden has dinosaur models, a dig pit, a slide, a small carousel for toddlers, two grill spots and covered picnic tables.
Knies Kinderzoo is a hands-on zoo run by the Knie circus family since 1962, with about 400 animals from 45 species by Lake Zurich. Kids can feed the elephants, ride ponies and camels, and loop the grounds on the electric zoo tram. Giraffes, cheetahs, penguins and a goat petting area round it out, with free keeper talks and a short animal film through the day.
Urania Observatory is a 51-meter tower at the western edge of the Old Town, opened in 1907 as Switzerland's oldest public observatory. Tours take place in a creaking wooden dome that turns to open a slit to the sky.
Guides explain the planets with screens and computer simulations, and on clear nights kids look through the original 12-tonne Zeiss telescope.
