Lake Brienz (German: Brienzersee) is a lake in the Canton of Bern in Switzerland. It is located just north of the Alps. The shores are steep, and there is almost no shallow water in the entire lake.
The River Aare enters and leaves the lake. When the river Aare leaves Lake Brienz, it soon joins Lake Thun. The lake is 14km long and up to 2.8km wide. Its area is 29,8km² and its maximum depth is 261m. The volume of the lake is approximately 5.2km³.
The lake is located at 564 metres above sea level. Its catchment area is approximately 1127km². On the northern shores of the lake is located the village Brienz which gives the lake its name. Interlaken and the villages Matten and Unterseen lie to the south west of the lake.
The lake is poor in nutritients, and consequently fishing is not very important. Nevertheless, in 2001 10,000kg fish were caught. There have been passenger ships on the lake since 1839. The ships are operated by BLS Lötschbergbahn, the local railway company. There are five passenger ships on the lake.
More images of Lake Brienz can be found at Wikimedia Commons.
External links
Lake Brienz Tourism Portal (http://www.brienzersee.ch/)
Giessbach waterfalls is a scenic area opposite of Brienz and it is certainly the best to get there by ship on Brienzersee, because the road to Giessbach is really quite narrow and also a bit dangerous with oncoming trafic, because only at a very few places 2 cars may pass by each other.
Today there is the highway also at the south of Brienzersee and it became rather easy to get there.
Brienz is not the most important town at Brienzersee, but it is certainly the most beautiful and romantic place, and a lot more interesting than Interlaken at the other end of the lake.
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