The difficult part when you are confined with a sick kid at home is to remain busy and creative at all time and keep screen time as short as possible. The relieving part in my case is that we were allowed to go out and get some fresh air as long as we would avoid close social contact (saying this, I haven't seen a day with so many people willing to shake my boy's hand hello before, which he always declined politely).
Out of all the possible activities I listed to cover an entire week off social life, and because the crazy weather decided to give us a break, I opened the box of maps and touristic guides of the region and picked the Altstaft ZUG fur Kinder (Zug Old Town for Kids)
The map is available at the train station's tourism information desk, or at the Bibliotek and other various spots. There is also an online version which covers the sites one after the other (so not very "map-friendly" but nice).
It gives a cartoon-looking overview of the places to see in the Old Town, including a map on one side and some sightseeing descriptions on the other including museums, stories of squares, statues or buildings. It includes also some stickers that can be used on the map itself. It is a very nice concept, in what looks like recycled paper, with the only pain being that you continuously need to turn the map back and forth to get the details of what you actually see (lovers of digital-format tourist guides, you feel me here). English-speakers only, you will need to work on your German for this one.
And so we went, starting from Potstplatz with the primary objective to reach the Fishery Museum next to the lake: it was closed (at the time of our visit, the website only had its 2017 opening hours on - within this week it has been updated with 2018 information, confirming it is closed until March).
So we kept on in the small streets with colourful houses, to reach the St Oswald Church (point 18 on the map, see below picture). There, I was hoping to find a dragon like on the map. I got lazy and did not read the actual explaination, but we ended up visiting the church (beware, the main entrance is closed and you need to go for the side door on the left) and lighting a candle.
Then we moved on to the garden behind the church that leads to the Zugerbergstrasse. There, we aimed at the first city tower (19). Which was closed. From where we stood we could see another tower with a piece of city wall (20). Which was closed, too.
So we went down, to check out the Kunsthaus Zug. It did not look like an exciting place to visit for a 3 year old, so we moved on and took the stairs down next to the Burg Zug. On the right, from the Aegeristrasse, we spotted the last tower (21) with the last hope it would be open as it is attached to the Capuchin Monastery. Good intention, wrong result. So we followed the stone wall down, back to where we started the tour.
I took note of itinerary: despite closed doors here and there, we did a very nice walking tour, a good 4km quietly with a slightly sick but super-motivated boy (needless to say he slept early and well that night).
What to keep in mind if you want to do this tour?
- be better prepared than me and maybe do a little more homework regarding opening days and hours. Sadly museums and visits are season-based, so expect to spend more time outside than indoors at this time of the year.
- Accordingly, get the right gears for bad weather. We only had a few drops, but there were barely no places to hide should it get worse. Expect also to walk on cobblestones which can be slippery.
