Kider Brook, the playschool where my kids were doing their kindergarten, took them to this lovely garden 3 years back. My darling hubby took the responsibility as I had another appointment on that Saturday.

They took a few dry snacks and fruits, though the school was ready with biscuits and cold drinks. ( Three years back I was not aware of the dangers of these aerated soft drinks).

Once back from the garden after 3 hours, my kids kept telling me of the swings and slides they played on, the trees all around, the tiny stream flowing through the garden and the pink candy they ate there !

They took promise from me that I will take them the next weekend again to the Empress Garden.
My hubby was also looking very fresh and happy, after meeting so many teachers obviously 🙂 as all the teachers later told me how sweetly my hubby helped them in managing all the kids and driving a few teachers and kids back to the school.

This garden sounded too good to be true. So I planned the next weekend with just my family.
From the moment I landed in the garden, I was mesmerized by the greenery all around. Now it being the Botanical garden was all the reason for its spic and span maintained trees and flora in that huge area.

I relived the years that I had spent in UK and Australia, with similar tall trees, bamboos of several sizes, plants and shrubs dressed up in pink, yellow, red and white flowers ! There are huge animal statues made of stones, wood and creepers that kids fall in love with. There is a huge life size elephant which even I was tempted to climb onto, but looking at the crowd, controlled my urge.

There are more than 50 swings, slides, see saws, merry go rounds and climbers that kids go crazy playing each one of them.

One very good thing about this garden is that the main gate is quite far off from the play-area. So even if the kids seem to go out of sight, no kid can be lost by just its wandering away. But that does not mean, parents should be completely relaxed. One has to keep an eye every now and then as the vastness of the garden can be easily used by anyone with bad intentions.

There is a horse too which is pretty healthy and kids take ride on it. Sometimes the same horse is used to pull a coach, for a family to ride around the garden.

There are eatables too around like ice-creams (with no cream :)), pink candy, peanuts, pop-corns etc. There is no drinking water or cold drink available in the garden strangely, please take your water along.

The garden is ideal for mini football, volleyball etc for kids. Lots of families go there and have picnic type fun with food they bring from home.

There is a small stream, which is created by the designers. It runs safe municipal water from a pipe at one end of the garden. The stream has constant fresh water flowing down where most kids get down and have fun. It’s just ankle length water and is a fun to watch kids splash around. I always take a towel and a pair of changing clothes for both my kids. They do have to come back and take a bath with soap once at home.

I celebrated my elder son’s birthday party there with kids going crazy over all the play things around. We parents had our blast with biryani from A1 caterers. We played volleyball and frisbiee for sometime. Then we played cards too.

There is a bathroom too which is clean at times and at times dirty depending on the usage frequency.

But overall its a lovely place like a mini oasis in the crowded city of Pune, for a stress free weekend.