Zurich - Bruno Weber Park

Into the Dragon's Mouth!

My life continues to be busy (which is always the case as I’m about to leave!), and this last week has been taken up with a visit from Geraldine, since we share the same birthday. Astonishingly, I managed to find quite a few things for us to do that I had either never done before or done only many years ago. I believed I’d been everywhere by now!

I thought I’d start off by talking about the trip we did to the Bruno Weber Park, even if it's not the first thing we did, since it’s open only between April and October. Thus, if in the next few weeks you are in Zurich and are looking for somewhere to go, you still have a chance to give this a try!

I’d never heard of this park before, even though I’ve been in and out of Switzerland for the last 14 years or so; I found out about it through a leaflet on a tram. The Park is in Dietikon, which is also somewhere I’ve never been, although I don’t think it has a reputation for being a hot spot for tourists. Dietikon is still in Kanton Zurich, so I regard it as local (we also have a place called Dietlikon, with an L in the middle, which is very confusing). 

I originally planned for us to go here on Wednesday. However, we were invited round to a friend’s for dinner on Thursday and it seemed sensible to go on Thursday instead, so that we wouldn’t have too much stress about getting back to Zurich in time.

This turned out to be a mistake. We managed to get to Dietikon without a problem; once there, the bus stops indicated which buses went to the Bruno Weber Park, but they did not include the bus I’d planned to use (from the Park’s leaflet). Nevertheless, we got on the bus I'd planned and hoped for the best.

The Park was signposted when we got off the bus. In fact, we could see it in the distance. It was a very hot day, we were in the middle of the countryside, and it was very quiet given that a public park was in sight. As we went up to the entrance, there were only a few cars in the car park. At the gates, a notice proclaimed that it’s open only on Saturdays, Sundays, and Wednesdays. Doh! I’d forgotten that this was why I’d originally planned the trip for Wednesday. I had no Plan B.

A group of people arrived and stood there while I poked my nose through the gate to look at what I was missing, wondering what on earth we could do. I made a point of looking at the notice again and mentioning to the group that it was closed and that Geraldine and I had come on the wrong day. I probably also made a few sounds of anguished frustration and I noticed the group talking among themselves as I made a bit of a fuss. Somehow, we found out that they had a booked private tour of the park, so I asked if there was any chance we could join them. There was more discussion and they said we could (as long as we paid our share, of course)! What a stroke of luck. If we’d arrived any earlier or later we would have missed them.

It turned out to be a work trip. They’d arrived at work that morning to find that a surprise outing had been organized for them and this was it! There were only around ten of them, and they were all Swiss, so everything was in Swiss German. But we got to see round the park and also got a little information on various parts of the park (not all of which I could understand) from the tour guide.

The park was the work of an artist and is itself supposed to be a work of art. It’s a fantasy world with dragons and Alpine spirits; it has a water section, a forest section, and I think maybe the third was a love section, but wasn’t available? It is still a work in progress as the artist has died, but they don’t have the monies to further it (so do go and help support them!). I believe it closed down entirely at one point, but there was public outcry, and so they re-opened.

It is really pretty amazing. You can walk along a dragon’s back and into its mouth; you can blow life into an Alpine spirit; you can sit on thrones. There’s a dining hall where they serve brunch on the last Sunday of every month (which I think includes entrance into the Park); the toilets were adorned with a peacock. The grand finale was the house (or should I say palace) of residence; so much detail you cannot take it all in.

We were lucky also to be part of such a small group and to have the park relatively to ourselves. The group was very friendly (one woman kept on stressing to Geraldine how hard you have to work in Switzerland!), and we tried to be as accommodating as possible given that we’d just tagged on to their event.

Anyway, I’d recommend it as a place to go. I even fantasized about getting a job where I could market the place for them, because it seems to be so neglected and unknown. The Swiss people were also saying that they had no idea it was there and they were born and bred in Zurich!