Monday, December 7, 2009

Day 12 Ballenburg Museum

Today we took a train to Brienz and the a bus ride to Ballenburg. This was about a 3 mile long open air museum. They have taken old Swiss homes, barns, and other structures and reconstructed them, then grouped them by regions where they were found in Switzerland. Inside the buildings there was period furnishings and an occasional person working the old arts. It was kind of like a living museum. You could easily spend 2 days there but we only had half a day. (OK maybe I could spend 2-3 days, 1/2 a day was enough for Shaun.) I started taking pictures but decided I would literally have hundreds so I stopped. So here are a few random ones. This was an awesome place!
Doesn't Shaun look cute as Peter?
Just a view of the thickness of the thatched roof.
That is a lot of straw!

A lot of these buildings were home and barn under one roof.
Several of the kitchens we saw were in a hallway in the center of the building, they were black with soot, and very dark and dingy.
They had cloths you could try on, Shaun found an alpine hat.

I thought this was kind of neat, The chickens coop was in the barn so they built a little ramp for the chickens to get in.
I just like chickens, It's kind of like cows with bells. I just like it.
We then met this lady and her husband in the Heirloom garden. They talked to us about growing plants and saving the seeds. They maintain this small garden at the museum and then they have a larger one that they save and sell seeds from.
Have you ever heard the term skinny as a bean pole? Well here are a bunch of bean poles.
I did not have enough time at this place. If you take a trip to Switzerland go here, but plan a few days.

1 comment:

Familie May said...

Cool, Shaun really looks funny as Peter. Love your pics.