Emmental and Berne

ACT 2 Conference, Lucerne, Switzerland, January 3-6, 1999

Plant Visitation and Cultural Experience

Heading southward via Burgdorf, we reach the Emmental, which is very hilly and mountainous, distinctly agricultural landscape. The people here were accurately portrayed by the novelist Jeremias Gotthelf (1797-1854), who was pastor at Lützelflüh. Even today, they are noted for their unmistakably independent streak.

Emmentaler, the ultimate traditional Swiss Cheese (that of holes and tired jokes), is sold all over the world. To put the jokes to rest, the holes are bubbles made by carbonic acid during the four-month fermentation process. The more symmetrical the holes are, the more expert the fermentation.

The Swiss were making cheese before their recorded history began, and as Roman records indicate that the cheese they imported over the Alpine passes had holes in it, it was almost certainly a kind of Emmentaler. Perhaps the Romans started the jokes!

In any case, Emmentaler is now produced in Germany, France, Austria, Finland, Argentina, Australia, the USA and no doubt in many other places as well.

Berne

The city of Berne, Switzerland's charming capital and picturesque town, in contrast to most other European capitals, is not obviously international in any way. Swiss history has not left any one center where the "nation's greats" forged their destiny. There was never a unifying, inspiring personality around who the upper echelons of society would gather, as there was in the case of Europe's monarchies. Nevertheless, Berne is the result of the hegemony of a few patrician families who managed to retain their claim to a leading role for centuries. This social structure finds expression even today - Berne has a whiff of aristocracy, yet still remains provincial, rather Swiss, in other words.

The old town can be visited no matter what the weather and even in torrential rain you won't get too wet because the old streets are lined with covered arcades, 6 km (3 ˝ miles) in length. The main streets run roughly parallel with the end of the rocky outcrop skirted by the Aare River. Outside these rows of buildings in the central part of the city, the land falls off steeply on three sides down to the Aare. This area beneath the town forms the "lower town" where the level of life was once lower socially as well as topographically. The view from the Münster-Plattform illustrates the point perfectly: deep below, at the foot of a mighty retaining wall, lies the area known as the Matte. Once a workers' and artisans' quarter, it is now particularly favored by members of the creative professions.

Lake Brienz and Lake Thun

The course of the Aare River between Berne and Thun, with its meadows, forests, reed grasses, sedge and backwaters, is one of Switzerland's most precious river landscapes. Much of it is a nature reserve. The course of the Aare River and its tributaries determined the regional layout of the Bernese Oberland. It can be broadly defined by the east-west course of the Aare with its two basins, Lake Brienz and Lake Thun.

The city of Thun lies 16 miles to the south of Bern along the shores of Lake Thun at the foot of the Emmental Mountains. Thun is the real gateway to the Oberland. Situated at the point where the Aare flows out of Lake Thun, it is dominated by its castle (now a history museum), perched up on a steep hill above the roofs of the town. The 12^th century keep, with its four corner towers, is reminiscent of a Norman castle. The landscape of the southern side of Lake Thun is dominated by the 2,362 meter (7,700 ft) high Niesen. Legend has it that a dragon once lived here, and that the Niesen contained lost souls who haunted sleepers. The Niesen separates the entry to the Simmental from that to the Kandertal valley. It can thus be circumnavigated on three sides. From each of these three sides it looks like a pyramid and from the top there is a good view of the entire Lake Tun region. At the foot of it, right next to the lake, is Spiez with its castle (now a museum) and its castle Church of St. Columba. They are more than 1,000 years old, and still retain many of their Romanesque features.

The small town of Brienz at the other end of Lake Brienz is famous for its wood-carvings, which can be bought in every souvenir shop in the Oberland. It can be approached by bicycle, boat, train, car or even on foot - but tourists traditionally take the boat. A trip around this mountain lake, which is 14 km (9 miles) long, takes some two and a half hours. The best means of transport to choose for this is the "Lötschberg", a paddle steamer every bit as good as its Mississippi counterparts, and the pride of the Brienz fleet.

Following the course of the Aare, one should visit the Swiss Open-Air Museum of rural architecture and lifestyles at Ballenberg. Original buildings have been brought to this 500 acre site from all over Switzerland. They are dismantled, transported piece-meal and then rebuilt, section by section. Many buildings, hundreds of years old, have been saved from demolition. The museum provides a picture of rural life throughout Switzerland, and also features demonstrations of rural crafts.

The Haslital valley, on the eastern edge of the Bernese Alps, is where the Aare has its source, and it ends at the catchment basin formed by the Grimsel Pass. This is the only adequately surfaced road between the Upper Valais and Northern Switzerland. The higher one goes in the valley, the rougher the landscape becomes, and it leads in to the largest continuous glacier region of the Alps covering a surface are of 300 sq. km (190 sq. miles. Among the many glaciers here are the Aare, Rhône and Aletsch. They are all conservation areas.

One of the best known holiday areas in the Haslital is the region around Meiringen and Hasliberg. High up on the Hasliberg, on the Mägisalp and in the Justistal valley above Lake Thun, a special festival has developed: the Chästeillet (cheese-sharing). The cheese produced on an alp has to be divided up among the various farmers in relation to the "milk-efficiency" of the cows that grazed on the alp. In the old days this took place without any great ceremony, but the farmers of today have turned the whole thing into a small folk festival. Sales booths are set up on the alp and tourists and locals alike have the opportunity to buy the cheese directly. The food, drink and music add an extra dimension to the view of the mountain peaks around the alp.

Interlaken

Interlaken, a town noticeably full of splendid hotel buildings, serves as a reminder of the health-spa-oriented, cosmopolitan lifestyle of the upper classes in both Europe and the rest of the world in the second half of the 19^th. Quite a few of the fin de siècle places are now used as old people's homes or congress centers.

Interlaken is ideally located in the center of the Bernese Oberland between the lakes of Thun and Brienz and at the foot of the world famous alpine peaks: Wetterhorn, Eiger, Mönch and Jungfrau are the background scenery of the Grindelwald valley, known as "glacier village".

The Eiger, Mönch and Jungfrau have often been admired by visitors. Since 1912, there has been a railway line leading up to the Jungfraujoch, the highest railway station in Europe. The summit of the Jungfrau is 4,158 meters (13,500 ft) above sea level, and averages temperatures below zero even at the height of summer. The weather station up on the Jungfrau collects important data for meteorologists.

A panoramic view of the entire Alpine region can be enjoyed from the top of the Schilthorn during a meal at the revolving restaurant, "Piz Gloria", which takes an hour to do one complete revolution. The cable-car scenes and ski-chase sequences from the James Bond film "On Her Majesty's Secret Service", were filmed on the Schilthorn, and the tourist brochures still refer to it by its film name "Piz Gloria".

At the end of the tour - a special treat - we will be climbing the Bruening Pass (the bus will do the climbing) and travel through beautiful Alpine countryside. Insight Guides «Switzerland»