Dutch Playgrounds

When you have little kids, a lot of your free time involves going to playgrounds.  We seek out cool playgrounds in every city we visit and along the way we discover cute neighborhoods, get to meet local people and watch our kids have fun.  The playgrounds we’ve visited in the Netherlands are very different from the ones our kids are used to in Madison.

The glaring difference is that in Madison most of the playgrounds are perfectly sculpted metal/plastic climbing contraptions designed to engage kids, but in a very “you climb here, you slide here, you sit here” kind of way.  And they are so safe they have lost some of their fun.  It’s like we’ve forgotten that the original playgrounds for kids were trees in the forest with ropes tied between branches.

In the Netherlands, the coolest playgrounds we’ve visited have been made out of wood, have metal slides, and have many ways our kids could potentially injure themselves.  They remind me of American Ninja Warrior courses.  Ever since Jack broke his leg by falling only a few feet from a  playground in the U.S. onto a squishy, safety-approved rubber mat – with me standing nearby and watching the entire time – I feel like if an injury is going to happen, it’s just going to happen. I want my kids to know the thrill of climbing trees, flying around on zip lines, and bouncing high into the sky.  I believe that kids need to take risks in order to learn how to manage risks – it’s an essential life skill.   Do I still get nervous when they are taking risks?  Sure.  But that’s my problem.

Here are some pictures of some of the playground equipment the kids have enjoyed the most.

Bouncing Tires – These tires are awesome!  When we arrived at the playground, there was a group of teenagers playing on these and they were having a great time and the tires were really flying high in the air.  All three tires are connected and the weight of the users corresponds to how high you can get them bouncing and swaying.  I secretly want to go back to this park with Brian after the kids go to bed and see how high we can get them going.  Here’s a link to a video of Jack bouncing on the tires while Ben giggles in the background.

 

Mega Zip Line – 

We’ve been to several parks in the U.S. with zip lines, but none with a mega, super fun Home Alone or Amazon rain forest style zip line where you actually feel like you’re flying.  The ones in the U.S. are usually on a rigid track and extend maybe 20 feet, so by the time you actually get going fast, the ride is over.  We found this awesome zip line at a park a short bike ride from our house.  It’s suspended on a wire so it bounces a little bit as you’re riding and it has a round seat for you to sit or stand on, so you don’t need to use all your arm strength to hang on.  Jack loved this zip line and Brian and I even tried to get in on the action.  It barely supported my weight.  Brian had fun in the beginning, but ended up with sand up his shorts by the end of the ride.  Click here for a video of Jack loving his ride on the zip line.

 

Pirate Ship Fort – In the last two weeks, our kids have been to two parks with ships for play structures.  The first was at the waterfront park in Sister Bay, Wisconsin on a trip to visit Brian’s family right before we left the U.S.  I love this park and think their ship-themed climbing structure is great.  Then we visited the Speeltuin De Rivierenwijk in Amersfoort and it looked like they had picked up a real pirate ship and plopped it in the middle of the playground.  It was awesome.  I wanted to climb up to the crows nest myself.

 

Sewer Pipe Tunnels – Kids love tunnels.  For some reason they are just awesome.  I hate them.  They make me feel claustrophobic and whenever my kids go in a tunnel, a tube slide, or some other small space I just hope they come out the other side so I don’t have to chase them.  More than one of the playgrounds we’ve visited has had a tunnel made out of a concrete sewer pipe.  It’s buried in a hillside in a natural-looking area and the kids can crawl from one side to the other.  Some have been short, but at the Speeltuin De Rivierenwijk there is a really, really long one.

 

Metal Slides – There are metal slides everywhere.  Some of them are attached to American-looking play structures, others are jutting out of a hill.  I have only seen one plastic slide so far.  Personally, I’m not a fan of metal slides because I remember them being so hot when I was a kid.  I celebrated when they started removing them from parks and replacing them with cooler-to-the-touch plastic slides.  So far, the kids haven’t seemed to mind the metal slides.  They run up and slide down them with the same bit of excitement they have for our slides at home.

 

Monkeys at the Zoo – I think every gorilla enclosure in every zoo has a rope net tied between several poles for the gorillas to lounge around in.  This playground had one too – except instead of gorillas lounging around it was 10-13 year old kids hanging out laughing.  What I liked most about it was it actually seemed challenging to get up there so it appealed to older kids.  I would have loved this as a elementary school aged kid.

 

Merry-Go-Rounds – You don’t see very many of these in the U.S. anymore.  There is still one at Wingra Park in Madison and when Jack was about two years old he wanted to ride on it with some bigger kids.  Brian, with his hulking muscles, stepped up to push the kids and put just a little too much power in to it and managed to fling Jack off the merry-go-round into the sand. Crying ensued.  But kids just love merry-go-rounds.  They make me super dizzy – even just looking at them – so I try to avoid them.  The Dutch merry-go-rounds are cute and unique.

 

More random playground pictures: