Ballenberg

I  had a vacation from school today, so I went to an outdoor museum near the city of Interlaken, called Ballenberg, with my host mother and some of her friends. It is so large that there are two entrances, one on the east side, and one on the west side. There is a long enough bus ride in between the two, but of course when you go through the museum there is nothing more lovely than to walk! I say museum, but it is really more like a historical theme park. Over the years they have collected and renovated ancient buildings from all over Switzerland and placed them strategically throughout the gorgeous terrain to represent the building styles of each canton. The awe of this place is also in the detail. Each room is filled with items as though a family from centuries ago was still living there!

Ballenberg also works to preserve traditions by training volunteers to build roofs, carve, weave baskets, and do basically everything as it had been done ages ago. As you walk though the prairies, hills, and forests to visit each of the homes you find craftsmen making cheese, smoking ham, carving, making hats, weaving, and gardening, that you can talk to and learn from. The milk, cheese, eggs, and other products of Ballenberg come from an array of animals including cows, horses, rabbits, and pigs that all live and are cared for there as in olden times. All of these products are then sold to the visitors for money to bring in new buildings, repair the old ones, and care for the animals.

In an entire day of investigating, I saw less than a fourth of the park, and my host mother says that she has been seven times and still has not seen everything. How I wish I could visit again!

Let's begin!

One of the most interesting buildings I saw served as both lodging for two families, and a smoke house for the entire village. As the families cooked, heated their home, and burned charcoal, they let the fumes rise up into the immense ceiling of the shared kitchen where there were stored racks and racks of hanging sausages. This was all re-created for the visitors of Ballenberg. After years of use, all the wood furniture and decorations in the home turned black from smoke. The black was really cool looking, but I hate to think of the lungs of the people who lived there...

The End!