Mülenen

Mülenen is a railway station in the Swiss canton of Bern. The station is located on the Lötschberg line of the BLS AG, and is in the village of Mülenen. Both village and station are divided by the boundary between the municipalities of Reichenbach im Kandertal and Aeschi bei Spiez. The lower station of the Niesenbahn funicular, which provides a link to the summit of the Niesen mountain, is adjacent to the station.

The Niesenbahn is a funicular railway above Lake Thun in the canton of Bern, Switzerland. It links a lower terminus, in the village of Mülenen at 693 m and adjacent to Mülenen station on the Lötschberg railway line, with an upper terminus at 2336 m near the summit of Niesen, a viewpoint above the lake and Bernese Oberland.The funicular is divided into two portions with a total length of 3.5 kilometers, an elevation difference of 1643 meters, and a maximum slope of 68%. Construction of the line commenced in 1906, and it opened in 1910.The service stairway for the Niesenbahn funicular is listed by Guinness Book of Records as the longest stairway, with 11,674 steps and a height of 1,669 m (5,476 ft). The stairs are usually employee-only, but there is a public run called "Niesenlauf" once a year. The line is owned and operated by the Niesenbahn AG.

Reichenbach im Kandertal is a railway station in the municipality of Reichenbach im Kandertal in the Swiss canton of Bern. The station is located on the Lötschberg line of the BLS AG, and is adjacent to the village of Reichenbach.

Aeschi bei Spiez is a municipality in the Frutigen-Niedersimmental administrative district in the canton of Bern in Switzerland.

Krattigen is a municipality in the Frutigen-Niedersimmental administrative district in the canton of Bern in Switzerland. It is located on a hill overlooking Lake Thun.

Aris ob Kien Castle (German: Burg Aris ob Kien) is a ruined medieval castle from the 12th Century. It is located in the municipality of Reichenbach im Kandertal in the Swiss canton of Bern.

Faulensee railway station (German: Bahnhof Faulensee) is a closed railway station in the municipality of Spiez, in the Swiss canton of Bern. It is an intermediate stop on the Lake Thun line. Direct rail service ended with the 2020 timetable change and was replaced with regular bus service between Spiez and Interlaken.

The Niesen is a mountain peak of the Bernese Alps in the Canton of Bern, Switzerland. The summit of the mountain is 2,362 metres (7,749 ft) in elevation. It overlooks Lake Thun, in the Bernese Oberland region, and forms the northern end of a ridge that stretches north from the Albristhorn and Mannliflue, separating the Simmental and Kandertal valleys.

Spiez is a railway station in the town of Spiez, in the Swiss canton of Bern. It is on the Thunersee line of the BLS AG, which connects Thun and Interlaken, and is the junction for the same company's busy Lötschberg line, as well as the Spiez-Erlenbach-Zweisimmen line.The station is served by various operators, including the BLS, Swiss Federal Railways, Deutsche Bahn.

Spiez is a town and municipality on the shore of Lake Thun in the Bernese Oberland region of the Swiss canton of Bern. It is part of the Frutigen-Niedersimmental administrative district. Besides the town of Spiez, the municipality also includes the settlements of Einigen, Hondrich, Faulensee, and Spiezwiler. The official language of Spiez is (the Swiss variety of Standard) German, but the main spoken language is the local variant of the Alemannic Swiss German dialect.

Lake Thun (German: Thunersee) is an Alpine lake in the Bernese Oberland in Switzerland named after the city of Thun, on its northern shore. At 48.3 km2 (18.6 sq mi) in surface area, it is the largest Swiss lake entirely within a single canton. The lake was created after the last glacial period. After the 10th century, it split from Lake Brienz, before which the two lakes were combined, as Wendelsee ("Lake Wendel"). The culminating point of the lake's drainage basin is the Finsteraarhorn at 4,274 metres (14,022 ft) above sea level.Lake Thun's approximate 2,500 square kilometres (970 sq mi) catchment area frequently causes local flooding after heavy rainfalls. This occurs because the river Aare (German: Aare), which drains Lake Thun, has only limited capacity to handle the excess runoff. The lake is fed by water from Lake Brienz to the southeast, which is 6 metres (20 ft) higher than Lake Thun, and various streams in the Oberland, including the Kander. In 1835, passenger steamships began operating regularly on the lake. Ten passenger ships, operated by the local railway company BLS AG like Blümlisalp, serve the towns of Interlaken and Thun; the Interlaken ship canal and Thun ship canal connect the lake to Interlaken West railway station and Thun railway station respectively.Following World War II and up until 1964, the Swiss Government disposed of unused munitions into Lake Thun. The quantity of munitions dumped is reported to be from 3,000 to more than 9,020 tons.

The Tropenhaus (English: Tropic House) in Frutigen, Switzerland, is a commercial project using geothermal energy from hot water flowing out of the Lötschberg base tunnel for the production of exotic fruit, sturgeon meat, and caviar in a tropical greenhouse in the Swiss alps. In 2007, the project received the Prix Evenir, the Swiss petroleum industry's CHF 50,000 award for sustainable development.The idea for the greenhouse began in 2002 when it became apparent that the water continuously flowing out of the Lötschberg Base Tunnel could not be directly diverted to the local river, the Kander, as its temperature of 20 °C (68 °F) would disrupt the biological rhythm of the endangered trout there. Rather than cooling the water artificially, wasting its thermal energy, tunnel engineers founded a start-up company to use the warm water to heat a greenhouse. The construction of the site began in May 2008 at 8 million CHF, and was completed by the end of 2009. Visitors were welcomed that same year. A sturgeon farm, one of few in Europe, is the heart of the Tropenhaus. Some 60,000 fish are intended to be grown in 40 outdoor basins. The sturgeons thrive in permanent Siberian summer conditions and are intended to yield 20 tonnes of meat as well as two tonnes of caviar annually. The first sturgeon fillets were sold in local stores in November 2008. The rest of the greenhouses are dedicated to the production of tropical fruits, such as banana, papaya, mango and guava, of which about 10 tons are intended to be grown annually in an area of 2,000 m2 (21,500 sq ft).The Tropenhaus is also a tourist destination, with a visitors' centre, a visitors' trail through the installation, a restaurant, and an exhibition room (paid for by a Bernese energy company) showcasing the project's use of renewable energy and sustainability. It is located some 600 metres (2,000 ft) or 7 minutes' walk from Frutigen railway station.