Ballenberg is an open air museum in Switzerland
that gives you an idea of what Switzerland used to be like. It features around a hundred or so century-old buildings from all over the country. Also included are farm animals and old-time gardens and some of the old machinery and traditions that were most prevalent in the last couple hundred years.
We spent hours walking around. It's pretty interesting to look at and one of the hugest exhibits I've ever seen. There is so much to see!. I took a ton of pictures but thought I'd highlight some of my favorite parts.
My most favorite part was going to the cheese house and seeing how they made cheese back in the day. You can see in this picture that the cheese maker is skimming the top of the surface of the water in the cauldron and taking the cheese curds. He then puts them into those buckets for cooling. We got to sample some fresh cheese and it was fantastic! One of the rooms in the house was a little cheese store and we bought several different kinds of cheese. They didn't last very long! We at them up pretty quick!
This is an old wine press. I could not believe how large it was!
Here are several cow bells. I couldn't imagine being a cow and having to wear one of these. They are really big and heavy!
An old office/reading room.
If you have any extra time, I'd encourage you to check out the website:
http://www.ballenberg.ch/en/Welcome
Like I said, there's so much to see and the pictures I've shown, along with my description, really don't do it any kind of justice at all.
