We visited the Swissminiatur park which is an open-air museum where you can admire the most important Swiss buildings and means of transportation.
We had been speaking by email to Alessandra from Lugano Tourism office for several weeks to organise our trip so it was a real pleasure to meet her in person last Friday. When she suggested we add an extra visit at the end of the day, we didn't hesitate for long as Swissminiatur is so famous that we could not miss it!
So the next stop was Melide where we had the pleasure of meeting Joël Vuigner whose grandfather founded the Swissminiatur park 60 years ago. Joël gave us a tour around the exhibition and we want to thank him again via this post for his time and generosity. He was lovely and you can feel his passion and dedication for the place as you visit the park!
Swissminiatur was inaugurated in 1959 and the park now covers 14,000 m²! We really encourage you to discover the history of the park and of it's founder Pierre Vuigner on their website.
It’s a really fun place with so much to see for adults and children. It’s like jumping into a large scale 3D guidebook of Switzerland and it gave us plenty of ideas for things we would like to see in real life. The waterways are filled with excitable fish and turtles which gave a nice extra dimension to the experience as well as the moving cars and little trains which we all enjoyed.
Jude and Alba took a ride on the larger train which took them on a tour of the whole park and they came back buzzing with excitement about the things they saw.
It’s a really well laid out place with flowers everywhere and the attention to detail is incredible. They are celebrating the 60th anniversary of the park with the inauguration of a the train Voralpen-Express which Joël told us had taken 1'500 hours to build. We had a sneak peek and its definitely worth taking a look.
We also had the chance to visit one of the work shops to see the model builders at work and it’s a true craft requiring so much skill and patience!
The visit lasts about an hour and will take you through well-known sites such as the castles of Rapperswil, Chillon and Bellinzona, the Federal Parliament in Bern and an airport! It's a great way to do some sight-seeing without the traffic jam in the Gothard tunnel!
Despite the fact that we were all pretty tired and the children had missed their naps, this was a perfect way to perk us all up and end the day in Lugano.
Jude was talking about feeding the fish hours after we left and it worked wonders at cheering up a previously rather grumpy Alba. Definitely go if you are in the area.
Information
Parking : Yes
Toilets : Yes
Accessibility : All accessible for pushchairs and wheelchairs.
Swissminiatur Via Cantonale 3 6815 Melide +41 91 640 10 60 info@swissminiatur.ch www.swissminiatur.ch