Ballenberg Swiss Open-Air Museum

Why go

Ballenberg, Swiss Open-Air Museum, is an open-air museum of rural buildings above Brienz, on land of the municipalities of Hofstetten bei Brienz and Brienzwiler; this record is the museum, not the hamlet of Ballenberg. The museum says it opened in 1978 with 16 buildings and now shows over 100 historic buildings from all over Switzerland, dismantled at their original sites and rebuilt in the museum: farmhouses, craftsmen's and day labourers' houses and outbuildings such as barns, granaries and bakehouses, grouped by region of origin. Its access page names two entrances, West at Museumsstrasse 100 in Hofstetten and East at Museumsstrasse 431 in Brienzwiler; the record's point lies inside the museum grounds and is neither entrance. The museum says the Ballenberg Train crosses the grounds from east to west with three stops.