Brienz

  Brienz, Switzerland
Sunday, September 24, 2006

Sunday 24th September: Ballenberg Museum

Opting for an easy-day today, after yesterday's hectic journey, we chose to visit the Ballenberg museum and then return back to Spiez in the afternoon so we could attend the 'Wine-festival' held today. We had breakfast of croissants & tea at the sports club, by the lakeside, amidst ample sunshine and sails setting off in the Thun Lake. Every little house in this village was so well decorated with flowers in full bloom, the reddest roses, and colourful purples swarming with plump bees!
We took the Interlaken Express train which is one of the scenic journeys. A plush train with its own cafeteria. Changing trains at Interlaken, we took the slow train to Brienz. I was awed by the little villages on the way, esp Lungern, a mixture of a little city with exotic views of the lake. 
Brienz another little town by the lake had watersport activities. Little did we know Ballenberg would exhaust us all day.

A bus dropped us at Ballenberg West entrance and here was the first time I met the fat lazy swiss cows munching in the green pasture as their bells dinged in rhythm. It was a real hot day at Ballenberg. This is an open air museum hosting traditional swiss cottage architecture with displays of various occupations. There was a water-wheel generating a motor for pressing the wheat, the cheese maker, the wine maker and so on. These cottages again were quite a climb and we huffed our way under the hot sun in hope to watch the cheese making and wine making process, but were disappointed to see none! What instead we saw was a 'donkey-festival' where they tied up a dozen donkeys in line, decorated with flowers, tugging a carriage! I did buy some fresh just made cheese, although didn't like it that much. But the cream of the day was the awesome swiss lunch here of fish gujons & bangers on mash. I must have tasted the best bangers in the world.
Visitors also had the option to cook their own food at barbeque areas at several places. BBQ isn't on our modern BBQ stand, but so traditional... like our Indian Choolha. There was this shallow well walled in stones, with wood smoking in the well and a grill to cover the well. You can roast your food on top of the grill lid. There was ample wood cut to exact shape & size, stacked in heaps at the side, and a little stream at the side to fetch you with natural water. I loved the way the stream water is used for water wheel. There are long tubes of bamboo pipes running from up hill, sliding water in force to fall on the wheel.

Another interesting thing I noticed were the toilets! Although these toilets were built in wood like a log-house in the midst of the woods, I was fascinated with the modern technology. After you flush, the toilet seat ring rotates 1 full circle, under a spray of sanitizer. So you have a clean toilet and a clean toilet seat too!
 
On our return journey we took a halt at Interlaken and strolled along the street window shopping. We were amazed at the collection of colourful cuckoo clocks, each with a different tune and a different feature. Some birds cuckoo others chime like Big Ben. Then there are those that have little dolls dancing.


We located a small grocery store called 'Coop' which is the 'Tesco' of UK and stocked in the essential vegetables. I did find the handful grocery items costing us quite a lot (60 CHF = £30), but then eating out was even more expensive. Switzerland pursues a very 'green' environment. They don't give bags, you have to buy your grocery bag and those are all paper. It was amazing how the light-weight paper bag could hold so much kilos of weight. Wish they adapted this habit everywhere.
 
Armed with my shopping, today I had plans of cooking something, but alas, all the german script on what looked like a litre of cooking oil, turned out to be Vinegar! Thus had to make do with a simple dinner of dal, rice and a ready-to-heat paneer sabji, that I had brought with me. I found the ready-to-eat dishes pretty amazing. They claim there is no preservative, no added colour, no artificial flavourings, yet the dish is fully cooked and vacuum packed to be stored at room temperature. Maybe like you have tinned foods. I had a variety of paneer, dal makhani, tadka dal each abt 200 gms.