Ballenberg, Swiss Open-Air Museum — Attraction in Hofstetten bei Brienz

After soooo many years of waiting to visit we finally made it! Oh why did we wait so long?!?! ... This museum is AMAZING!! We have only ever heard positives about Ballenberg and everything we have heard is true!

I love how you can explore each and every house, touch artifacts and try different crafts, climb the stairs and smell the smells! The people who work here are brilliant, you can tell how much they love their museum and what it means to them. All but one of the people we met was happy and willing to help. Their knowledge and understanding of the social history of Switzerland was excellent and they were able to make the lives of the people who lived in all of those place come alive. They loved to talk, explain, show and answered our questions with patience and all the people we spoke with were able to speak very good English too which helped. One gentlemen stopped and asked us if we were enjoying our visit and suggested houses that we may not have seen yet and other things to do in the area during our stay too.

Ballenberg is huge and expensive and were told that we would never see it all in one day, we took that advice and planned out where we wanted to go and what we especially wanted to see then concentrated on those things. For us, we chose to focus on the crafts (make sure you download their activities on the day you go as they change daily) and hands on. This meant we were able to get around all of the places we had chosen to see. Staff also helped with this and were able to advise on the best routes around the museum. It also means that the next time we visit we will probably concentrate on a different aspect and see differnet things.

Good planning is key to enjoying your visit and getting the most out of the day, it is expensive but worth every centime especially if you make the most of the whole day. My top tips are: Check their website out before you visit especially their interactive map which gives details on the different houses. Think about what you want to get out of your day. Note the places you want to see and mark them on a map (these can normally be picked up at the tourist information centre and hotels etc). Decide which entrance you want to start from, it may be you want a particular entrance because it is closer to more of the places you want to visit. Decide the route you are going to take. If you're not staying nearby it's worth spending a couple of nights in a hotel (we stayed in Meiringen). We found it cut down on the traveling on the day which gave us more time at the museum. It also meant that we got a little more sightseeing in on the the days that...

Nice, interesting and beautiful place in the Bernese Oberland!

We've been to the Ballenberg Open-Air Museum several times now with our children and can definitely recommend it. Although the entrance fee of over CHF 30 is not exactly cheap, but with the Raiffeisen card you can get in for free or there are other discounts.

Once inside, the Ballenberg offers many exciting and educational things for young and old. The themed areas, which represent the different regions of Switzerland, are prepared and designed with great attention to detail, as are the hiking trails. There are various demonstrations and other activities that convey the traditional crafts and folklore life of the Swiss Confederation in a pictorial and educational way. Different local food is also offered in the various regions, which also pleases the gourmet in me!

All in all, you can have a great time at Ballenberg. Just looking at the old buildings is fascinating and inspiring at the same time. You can teach the children many things pictorially, e.g. how the grain travels from the field to the bread, or how pottery is made, etc etc etc. We will enjoy going again!

We will be happy to go there again soon! We saw there is a Foxtrail now!

Nevertheless, there are a few warnings: Certain areas are very difficult or almost impossible to reach with a wheelchair/pram. The parking fee could be saved or at least allow payment with Twint. Most of the parking machines were out of order and I had to walk like 100km there and back again... The toilets are not up to an insane standard. There is room for improvement. It's not that they're dirty, but it's noticeable that they're already a few years old and are used by hundreds of people every day. And they are not well...

I visited the restaurant DEGEN and in my opinion it is basically a typical restaurant where they DO NOT CARE about guest experience. They might be always full as they are in the middle of a touristic place with no competition and most people won’t come back as they are tourists.

It is a very narrow-minded way to do business but is definitely how they think, starting from low menu options, zero flexibility about menu adaptations or pleasing guests with table choices, etc.

We had a serious issue with the room where we stayed as the ventilation system was not working and the room was very smoky. We tried to keep one of the windows partially open but the other table didn’t want to, so the waitress closed the window. When I questioned the waitress about why she didn’t even ask us about the window or tried to find a common solution, she literally laughed at my face and said it was not her problem (even though the issue was the ventilation system!) and that the other table were in more people (maybe it also counted that the other guests were swiss and we weren’t).

The waitress didn’t show any empathy for us and it got even worse when we complained to her at the end, as we had ‘no rights to not be happy with their amazing service”.

The other waitress who was listening to the conversation also said “we don’t have time for anything else than cooking and serving, we do not notice things like ventilation system malfunctioning….” And when I asked about “guest experience” she just repeated “we don’t have time...”

It is a pity that some restaurants have the privilege to be “alone” in premium locations without competition and don’t value what they have. If even COVID times haven’t served as a lesson,...