A Georgia Girl in Germany

On the 4th of July, we took a mid-week getaway and headed to the Lake Constance area with the USO for a relaxing day off. As with any USO trip, the bus has to make at least one rest stop, and this particular stop had several groups of boulders stacked together. The kids really enjoyed climbing on them and being junior mountaineers. Benjamin thought he was king of the mountain, and the other two readily joined in! It helped burn off a little energy along the way, even though it wasn’t that long of a trip.
Soon we were at Mainau Island on Lake Constance (Bodensee). The island is famous for its tropical plants, flowers and trees, and borders on Germany, Austria and Switzerland. We didn’t stop to look at many of the signs naming the various flora, but we were surprised to find what we called the “Nana bush” greeting us at the entrance. Actually, it was a Punica granatum “Nana,” which is a dwarf pomegranate that doesn’t produce fruit, but instead bears orange-red single flowers. It didn’t have any flowers that day, but MacKenzie had to take a photo for Nana -- especially considering that her Nana has a tremendous green thumb.

I thought this was an interesting way to water the grass -- with a very energetic flower sprinkler.

This garden gnome is completely made of flowers, and there’s a sign indicating that they hope it will break the World’s Record for being the largest such gnome. From what I could read of the sign, it’s being grown with more than 16,000 horn violets, begonias, irises and other flowers. It’s currently more than 52 feet across, 19 feet deep and 29 feet high! Wow!

I thought the peacock below was pretty interesting as well.


Everywhere we turned were beautiful groupings of flowers, bushes and trees. No wonder the island is well-known for its variety of tropical and semi-tropical vegetation, including bananas, palm trees, bamboo, citrus fruits, and many, many flowers.

It was a cool and windy day, and fortunately, we were close to the butterfly house when it started to rain (wonderful German weather). And it wasn’t just any butterfly house...it’s the largest in Germany.


We saw hundreds of beautiful butterflies fluttering all around us. Some included the American Monarch from the Tiger family and a metallic blue-winged species from the tropical rainforests of Peru and Brazil.


There were so many varieties of colors and sizes, I was mesmerized trying to watch them all.


The butterflies from the Glasswing family from Central and South America were particularly unique.


MacKenzie really liked the black and orange Longwing butterflies.

This Giant Atlas moth (below) typically found in India, Malaysia, Indonesia and China landed on my leg, and I was able to coax him onto my hand for a better look. Benjamin was very hesitant to get close to it, and kept a wary eye on it.


We even saw some newly-emerged butterflies hanging upside down. They have to do so to force blood into their wet and crumpled wings before they can fly off.

Of course, the kids found a hidden entrance behind a waterfall and ran off to wave to me from behind the water and across the indoor-pond.


If you’re going to have the largest butterfly house in Germany, you need a wide variety of flowers for the butterflies, and Mainau didn’t disappoint. We found flowers of almost every color imaginable!



Can you find MacKenzie hiding in the cactus garden below?


I liked this cascade leading from the nearby castle and church down to Lake Constance.


Above are the 18th century Castle Church and the Baroque Castle residence of Count Bernadotte’s family. We only peeked inside the castle (the kids weren’t too interested in walking though an indoor art exhibit, at least outside they could run around the gardens).

I thought the handle on the door to the castle was rather different.

After the kids indulged me in visiting most areas of the grounds, we stumbled upon a woodland creature and his house. Zachary decided to help the creature with a slight sinus problem.




From there we went to the playground. This wasn’t just any playground -- it was massive, complete with rope bridges, slides, boulders across a pond (which Benjamin loved!), and even wooden rafts for the kids to paddle like Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn.




As always, the kids were having loads of fun and weren’t quite ready to leave. But, alas, we had to catch our bus for the next portion of our Lake Constance visit. While walking back to the bus, Benjamin decided to stop and hide in a tree...as best he could. I suppose he figured if he stopped we wouldn’t have to leave. Wrong. Gee, his stubbornness can really come through when he has the right combination of being totally engrossed in what he’s doing and not having a nap. Even my advance notice in the playground that it was almost time to go didn't work this time. Sooo... suffice it to say that he wasn’t happy with me by the time we made it back to the bus.

Labels: Benjamin, Germany, MacKenzie, Travel, Zachary