Chris drove through the mountains to Ballenberg where we spent the morning exploring an open air museum of a Swiss village. The creators of this museum have been buying, carefully deconstructing, moving, and rebuilding houses from all over Switzerland. The mountainside museum was covered with roads, homes, churches, cheese huts, and barns to show what life was like (and probably is still like for many living in the region). We toured some of the homes, watched cheese being cooked over a fire in a huge kettle drum, smelled the wonderful smell of wood being cut at a saw mill, and watched a woman give a weaving demonstration. We bought a loaf of bread and some cheese from the cheese-making shed and enjoyed a simple lunch outside on a bench.
Amy was particularly thrilled by the Air Force based located close by and the F18s that kept taking off and landing. The sound was awesome and could be felt all the way to our toes. The workers at the museum weren’t quite as enthusiastic about all of the planes and the noise.
The cows on this mountain enjoyed a lush diet of grass, flowers, and clover. They each have a cowbell around their neck, which would get annoying for me to have to listen to all day but allows them to be found and identified by the cow herder. And in case you wonder, the boundary line which really just looks like string, is really electrified. Amy didn’t realize it as she backed up to it and gave her back side a bit of a zap.
We bought chocolate from the Chocolaterie before leaving the mountainside museum. And unlike other European countries we have visited, our experience in Switzerland thus far offered an abundance of WCs (bathrooms)--at no charge even.
Some other fun pictures from the village museum.
My photobombers
Our next stop was at the waterfalls in Tremmelbach. We were able to take a funicular up to the 10th waterfall. The waterfalls were mighty and roaring down the inside of the mountain. We were glad to have our rain jackets as the spray was like a shower at times and the moisture dripped from the ceiling. I had to tuck my camera inside my jacket to keep it from getting soaked as well.
Instead of a return trip to the base on the funicular, we took the stairs and were able to see waterfalls one through five along with the whole valley.
We walked around the small town which was graced with waterfalls all around (and lots of flowers in bloom). Misha found a sweatshirt and a Swiss Army knife to buy (which they engraved with her name for free).
Before leaving the Interlaken area, we drove a short distance around the lake. Spying some picturesque vistas on the lake, Chris backtracked to a parking area so I could take pictures.
We drove back to Evian, enjoying a fantastic sunset along the way.