Younger visitors can have a go at rearranging the Swiss Open-Air Museum – thanks to the magnetic pieces!

In olden days baking your own bread was of great importance in order to put food on the table. Farmers’ wives would bake their bread in the oven houses, which were often owned by the local community. In the baking room of the Stöckli from Detligen/Radelfingen BE (333) the Museum’s bakers fire up the wood-burning oven every day in the early morning.

On some days, baking takes place at the Ballenberg Open-Air Museum. Delicious apple pies, tarte flambée, and much more are made. Guests are allowed to taste the delicacies.

Bobbinlace making is like weaving but with threads which are wound around spools of a type called bobbins. The threads are crossed over each other.

There’s a fire! At the ‘Brandboden’ our younger guests can pretend they’re in the fire brigade! When the bucket is filled with water, the hand sprayer is used. Using all their strength they have to pump enough water to put out the fire. When the bell rings, you’ve beaten the fire.

Here (352), our youngest guests have the chance to get to know the games their ancestors played. They can walk on stilts, ride a hobbyhorse or skilfully twirl the hula-hoop. These and many more activities can be enjoyed and sometimes even our adult visitors participate in games which bring back childhood memories.

The individual roof tiles are heavy, but they keep out the rain for many years. Have a go yourself and help re-roof our houses.

There are countless types of embroidery – cross stitch, kilim, silk embroidery, Schwalm embroidery, to name but a few - and this technique for working on textiles is known throughout the world. The principle is always the same: a backing material is decorated by means of drawing through or sewing on threads.

An elf and his helpers meet at the edge of the woods. They are the principle figures in the exhibition "Enchanted Forest" and lead the children from one theme to another.

Various different tools – gravers, chisels, hammers and all kinds of punches – are used to shape and decorate the surface of metal. In Alpine saddlery, leather items are trimmed with decorative metal fittings to be worn by farmers and Alpine dairymen and their livestock.

You can touch the exhibits here – and join in fun, hands-on activities too. Depending on the day, experts will help you learn how to weave straw, do woodwork or even print bags.

The hobby workshop in the Dwelling from Matten, Berne (1021) invites you to do-it-yourself.

The hand plane is used to work on wooden surfaces, joints and edges. You can try this tool at the workbench and take your piece of wood with you. On the second table there are materials that have been found, are off-cuts or collected for recycling which are ready to be used for handicrafts. Find ideas on site in the sketch book. You can also record your project in the book for other visitors.

It’s playtime! Here, you and your friends can put your skills to the test with games involving materials we usually use for other things. How about a game of Snap, bottle fishing or horseshoe throwing? Or perhaps you’d like to invent a game of your own? The playing field is the perfect place to have fun!

Watch how wool is plucked and carded in the dwelling from Schwyz, Schwyz (751).

In the Small Farmhouse from Unterseen BE (1051) there is a small pottery workshop, just like the ones found in villages in the old days, when pottery was made by hand in small family enterprises. All the various stages of production are to be seen at Ballenberg, from the turning on the wheel, to the pre-firing (bisque firing), to the glaze firing, to the engobe decoration. The potteryware can be purchased directly in the pottery workshop.

The Rope Walk from Unterägeri ZG (1061) in the Ballenberg Open-Air Museum is an impressive building. The 52-metre-long shed is all that remains of the original building which was twice as long. Inside this “tube” the Ballenberg ropemakers demonstrate one day a week how they go about their craft.

In the dark kitchen of the farmhouse from Madiswil BE (321) farmers’ wives prepared the daily food. They stood in the smoke for many hours at the low stove - an everyday life that is hard to imagine. The smoke from the hearth fire served to preserve sausages, bacon and other pieces of meat. These days sausages hang from the ceiling in smoke - you can purchase these ‘homemade’ sausages in the Ballenberg shop.

The women weavers in the Ballenberg Open-Air Museum regularly sit at the 200-year-old loom in the weaving cellar, letting the shuttles glide across the warp. In the weaving cellar it is possible to purchase handwoven products such as the legendary “Znüni”, bread bags with the Haslital pattern, or towels and linen Kirschstein bags.

From listening to testing your balance, from building sandcastles to hide-and-seek – the playground at the “Alter Bären” Restaurant (311) on the edge of the forest is a fun place for children of all ages.

The cheese dairy in Ballenberg functions on an almost daily basis. In House 1361, the Alpine Cheese Dairy from Kandersteg BE, visitors can not only look at the various bits of apparatus needed for cheesemaking but also follow the process itself as it happens.

A waterwheel turns a wooden shaft from the Bone mill from Knonau, Zurich (692), the cam boom. Eight wooden cam pegs lift rams up and let them drop down again under their own weight. The blows following one another in mere seconds crush the boiled bones until the catchment trough contains nothing but meal.

The loud puffing and wheezing in the Sawmill from Rafz ZH (691) can be heard from a long way off. The regular rhythmic noise of the machine is an almost daily feature at the Ballenberg Open-Air Museum when the sawyers start it up and begin sawing wood the old way. The drive mechanism is a showpiece in itself. The power is delivered by an overshot water wheel. The water shoots out of the channel from above, falls on to the wheel blades and sets the wheel in motion. The drive power is transmitted to the frame saw in several stages by means of giant cog wheels and transmission belts.

A waterwheel turns a wooden shaft from the Bone mill from Knonau, Zurich (692), the cam boom. Eight wooden cam pegs lift rams up and let them drop down again under their own weight. The blows following one another in mere seconds crush the boiled bones until the catchment trough contains nothing but meal.