June 24th - Ballenberg & the Tellspiele at Interlaken

Today we took the train to Brienz and then the Post bus to Ballenberg, the Swiss Open-Air Museum. In the extensive grounds, a total area of 165 acres, typical houses and settlements from almost every canton in Switzerland can be seen. It has over 100 original century-old buildings from all over Switzerland some from as early as the 16th century. It is a unique park.

The amount of detailed carpentry in some of the building was amazing.


We had lunch in a picnic area along with several groups of school children on tour. The Swiss are good about providing free firewood in these area. All you need to bring is your meat to cook.

There were several exhibits such as weaving and using the water wheel to power a lumber mill. And, of course there were lots of farm animals.




From Ballenberg, we took the paddle steamer from Brienz to Interlaken where we had dinner and walked around a bit. Then we walked about a mile to the site of the production of "William Tell".

The magnificent drama of Schiller’s “William Tell” is performed each year in the open-air theatre in the Rugen wood at Interlaken. It tells of the hardship and suffering of the Swiss people over 700 years ago when their land was under the tyrannical rule of Austria, and of their heroic struggle for freedom. The setting for this play is perfect. The stage is framed by authentic wooden houses built true to the style of the 13th century and towering up behind them grow the tall trees of the wood. We joined 2,000 students at this production.






We were able to follow the play by referring to the description of scenes in the program. There are over 180 actors, all amateurs from the surrounding towns. The cast includes goats and cows and 17 horses. The photo to the left shows the high point of the drama where Tell shoots the apple off his son's head. In the photo, the son is on the far left while Tell, in brown, is on the right holding his bow.

We enjoyed the production very much. It was made even more enjoyable by the reaction of the students to actions on the stage.
The final curtain call included the well-trained horses.