Themed days
On selected weekends during the season, our themed days invite you to immerse yourself in exciting craftsmanship and special themed worlds. Come along and rediscover traditional crafts.
Themed days 2025
- 26 / 27 April - The hat hut: the art of hatmaking
- 3 / 4 May - Unterheid: Open day on the construction site
- 10 / 11 May - Open kitchen
- 19 / 20 July - Fairytale Weekend
- 3 August - Bag printing
- 23 / 24 August - Hand broom making
- 6 / 7 September - Bottles in straw: reconstruction of an ancient craft
- 13 / 14 September - Preserving Sauerkraut
- 27 September - Goat exhibition of the "oberer Brienzersee" association
- 27 / 28 September - Unwinding, from cocoon to silk thread
The themed days take place at various locations in the Ballenberg, Swiss Open-Air Museum, details can be found on the daily schedule.
26 / 27 April – The hat hut: the art of hatmaking
Immerse yourself in the fascinating world of felt hat production! This traditional craft is brought to life in our original workshop: watch how steaming water hissing from the kettle is directed onto the hat press to create artistically shaped men’s and women’s hats from simple felt blanks.
3 / 4 May – Open day on the construction site: a peek behind the scenes!
On the construction site open day, our team of experts will take you along on the exciting journey of relocating a historic building. Find out how traditional craftsmanship and tried-and-tested construction methods, such as walls made with lime mortar, are used in the reconstruction. Our experts will explain how the building is dismantled stone by stone at the old site, then stored and prepared for reconstruction.
Take the opportunity to get a look behind the scenes of the relocation of the 111st historic building at Ballenberg.
10 / 11 May – Open kitchens and farm-style cuisine just like the old days
In the olden days, farmers’ wives prepared a variety of hearty Swiss dishes every day using simple methods, over an open fire or in a wood-burning oven. A lot of skill was required to keep the oven at a constant temperature using wood, without a thermometer. Enjoy traditional country cuisine and taste freshly prepared delicacies.
19 / 20 July – Fairytale Weekend
Dive into fantastical tales from every part of Switzerland, listen to the various Swiss languages and dialects, and let yourself be whisked away into strange worlds by talking frogs or pots magically filled with chestnuts.
3 August – Bag printing, a traditional printing technique
In the past, this artistic technique was widely used in the West Midlands, while flour sacks in eastern Switzerland were usually painted. We are reviving this traditional craft with hand-carved copies of original printing blocks at Ballenberg. Every print requires care, precision and power. That’s why a maximum of just two bags can be produced in one weekend.
If you want to get creative yourself, you can print the Ballenberg logo on a bread sack (for a fee) and then sew it together yourself using the old pedal sewing machine.
23 / 24 August – Make a hand broom like in the old days
Straw hand brooms are roughly 30 cm-long hand brooms braided from special grass. In the past, they were indispensable in rural households, whether for cleaning the stove, cleaning shoes, brushing away snow or sweeping hard-to-reach corners. These practical household helpers were once made by farmers’ wives. The Ballenberg team keeps this traditional art of braiding alive and shows visitors how brooms are made using traditional methods.
6 / 7 September – Bottles in straw: reconstruction of an ancient craft
Until the late 19th century, protective covers for bottles were made of three intertwined coils of straw and sewn by hand. Later, braided and padded baskets made of willow-rods replaced this technique, and gradually the version made of straw fell out of use. The Ballenberg team is reviving this traditional straw craft and using it in the restoration of damaged historical straw bottles from the Ballenberg buildings.
13 / 14 September – Preserving Sauerkraut
At Ballenberg, at the start of autumn, the cooking team ferments a large pot of sauerkraut and look after it for 8 weeks. At the end of the season, this sauerkraut is ready and cooked for our guests in a historical kitchen. On some Saturdays in autumn, guests can also make their own sauerkraut. Our visitors have the opportunity to make their own sauerkraut.
Sauerkraut is a type of preservation technique in which food is preserved by means of lactic acid fermentation. Sauerkraut is not a vegetable as such, but is produced from white cabbage or cabbage. This vegetable with its long shelf-life and known worldwide for thousands of years, is the result of a natural fermentation process and salt.
27 / 28 September – Unwinding, from cocoon to silk thread
The precious silk thread is created from the cocoons acquired here. Watch how the silk thread is cleverly unwound from the cocoons and turned into shiny thread material. During unwinding, steaming hot water is used to dissolve the silk glue produced by the caterpillar and expose the thread, which is up to three kilometres long – sweaty, high-precision work.
Ballenberg
Swiss Open-Air Museum
Museumsstrasse 100
CH-3858 Hofstetten bei Brienz
Opening hours
10 April to 2 November 2025
10 am to 5 pm daily
