St. Peter´s Island on the Lake Biel

27.6.2016

When my husband planned a trip to the Lake Biel, I was expecting a relaxing walk from the town Erlach on the St.Peter´s Island. You may be wondering, what is this nonsense “going to walk on the island”? The explanation is quite simple: since the second half of the 19th century the island is connected wtothe mainland by a man-made spit of land, so it is actually a peninsula, but that hasn´t changed its name.

So I was really excited that I would enjoy again almost summer weather, admire the view of boats, sailboats and steamers cruising Lake Biel, but the reality was far from my ideas …

So where to begin? Although the trail to the island is officially stated as a tourist trail suitable for wheelchair users, the footpath in the first half makes the slight A-shape and it is quite difficult to maneuver there with a buggy, let alone a wheelchair.

Expected views also nothing much – unless you are a botanist and take pleasure in the views of ten-foot reeds. To make the trail more varied you could use a short wooden trail through marshes to the “view” – from which you do not see too much (well, someone who is not such a half-pint like me maybe sees something over the omnipresent reeds, I guess). This gloomy weather did not help too much.

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You could enjoy better view of the distant lake shores from a small lookout tower (turning to it can be easily missed because it is not labeled). We bumped into it just because we heard voices somewhere from the left and our curiosity hurried us up to see what was hidden there.

The second half of the trail to the former monastery, which was built on the island around 1127 (now a hotel and restaurant), led through the forest. Here’s the place to admit that we did not make it to the hotel at the end of the island, because we were so frustrated by millions of flies and mosquitoes, that we took it straight to the port finding out how to escape the island (the idea of taking the same way back made us fainting). We were lucky when we found out that the steamer sails in less than a quarter of an hour. From that moment, everything turned for the better. The sun begun to shine and only then we started enjoying our trip, when we saw how our boys were happy because they caught the place on the upper deck, from where they had great views.

25minute voyage back to Erlach was not direct, we had a “stopover” in the town of La Neuveville, which I certainly want to visit sometime in the future because from the ship it looked really charming.

Imaginary icing on the cake was when we after arriving ashore we saw a nice big playground right on the lakeshore and our kids had a good romp there 🙂

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