A birthday party in Bokrijk

Kabouter came with a specific idea for his birthday party: he wanted to go to Bokrijk.  I answered that it seemed like an original idea and I'd check online if such a thing was possible in the park.  "Yes, they organize birthday parties, I have already looked it up", he answered. 

About 6 weeks later, we were on a train with 10 children on our way to Bokrijk.  

We had booked the birthday party package (for which you need a minimum of 9 children) that takes 90 minutes, with an extra workshop and pancakes as extras.  We had all received the quotation, the advice which train to take in order to arrive on time and when we walked to the entrance our birthday party guide was already waiting for us for a joyful welcome. 

The children got dressed up a bit for old times, the backpacks and some materials got thrown in a handcart and they had to go and search for their itinerary. 

The itinerary wasn't exactly challenging and we only walked through a very small part of the historic part (being the part of the "Kempen") where each stop was quite close to the other.   Our young enthusiastic guide told us stories from the past and we got to play some old-fashioned village games. 

The children also got a demonstration and a hands-on experience in some old artisanal skills when they got to roll a candle and twist a cord. 

90 minutes pass quickly and then we headed to the workshop area where the children built a little bird feed house. All the materials were sort of pre-fitted so they just needed to hammer the right things at the right spots, but that didn't seem to bother them and we still had to pull and fix some wrongly hammered nails. 

We finished in the old Inn of the park for our crepes and some time to unwrap presents that had been dragged along all day. 

And then we had it perfectly timed to move back to the train station and head back to Leuven.   I thought it was a fun birthday party with lots of variety. (more variety than in Plankendael). And for us parents it was very chill: we had just to walk along and pay the bill :D.