Lake Biel
Fly here
A lake astride the language border, with St. Peter's Island.
From the basket
At the foot of the Jura, Lake Biel is the smallest of the region’s three lakes. From the balloon it is an oval fifteen kilometres long, set between the vineyards of the north shore and the fields of the Seeland. It takes its name from Biel/Bienne, the city of two languages, set at the far eastern end, where you pass from French to German from one street to the next.
On the north shore, the winegrowing villages of Twann and Ligerz cling to the slopes, at the foot of the Jura cliffs. In the south-west, near Erlach, a long wooded peninsula juts out into the water: this is St Peter’s Island, joined to the mainland by a tongue of land. A smaller islet is left to the birds.
Since the great Jura water correction works at the end of the nineteenth century, the Aare has been diverted into the lake. It brings most of its water there, and leaves it further on, calmed. In July 2021, after exceptional rains, the level of the lake rose to nearly two metres above its usual height.
Fly over the lake from the city to the island, then let yourself be carried along the vineyards of the north shore.
Sources: Wikipedia, “Lac de Bienne” (in French).