Spiez Castle

Spiez Castle stands on a small peninsula that juts into the southern shore of Lake Thun, between Thun and Interlaken, in the Bernese Oberland. The peninsula is approximately 800 metres long and narrows to a point at its northern tip where the castle's medieval keep rises from the vineyard. The south-facing slopes of the peninsula are planted with vines — an unbroken tradition of approximately 1,000 years, making the Spiez vineyard one of the oldest surviving vineyards in Switzerland and the highest north of the Alps. The castle, the church, the vineyard, and the lake are a single compositional unit: you cannot visit Spiez without encountering all four, and the best visits combine them deliberately.

The earliest documentation of a fortification at Spiez credits King Rudolph II of Burgundy with establishing a presence here in 933, though the documentary evidence for the early medieval period is thin and the 933 date should be treated as traditional rather than precisely confirmed. What is certain from archaeological and architectural evidence is that a permanent stone fortification existed on the peninsula by the 12th century: the Romanesque keep (the central tower visible from the lake) and the small church within the castle precincts both date to this period. The church is a notable survival in its own right — small, stone-vaulted, with medieval frescoes and the complete architectural programme of a 12th-century Romanesque chapel, still in the original form rather than later-modified. It is open year-round and free of charge, which means visitors arriving outside the castle-museum season can still experience the most historically significant single room in the complex.

The castle passed through several noble families before arriving in the possession of the Bubenberg family in 1338, and it is the Bubenberg period (1338–1506) that produced the castle's most historically significant figure. Adrian von Bubenberg, lord of Spiez in the late 15th century, commanded the Bernese forces at the Battle of Murten in 1476 — the engagement in which the combined Swiss confederate and Bernese army decisively defeated Charles the Bold, Duke of Burgundy, ending French-Burgundian military dominance in western Switzerland and establishing the military reputation that would make Swiss mercenary forces the most sought-after in Europe for the following century. The Bubenberg family died out in 1506 and the castle passed to the von Diesbach family, then to the von Erlachs — both significant Bernese patrician families whose additions and modifications shaped the 17th and 18th-century residential character of the 'New Castle' wing.

This Baroque wing, added and expanded through the 17th and 18th centuries, is what gives Spiez its distinctive dual-character: a medieval fortress at its core, with a comfortable Baroque residential wing attached. The von Erlach family were serious architectural patrons elsewhere in the canton — they were involved with the great Baroque transformation of Bern in the late 17th century — and the New Castle at Spiez reflects their ability to commission competent work without dramatic extravagance. The rooms are well-furnished rather than showpiece.

The castle museum, which occupies both the medieval and Baroque sections, presents the history of the building and its families through furniture, portraits, arms, and applied art of the appropriate periods. The organisation is sensible rather than spectacular; the rooms are shown furnished rather than as bare archaeological spaces. But the museum visit is, for most people, the least important reason to come to Spiez. The reason to come is the combination of things that only this peninsula offers: the vineyard on the slope below the castle walls, the lake visible between the vine rows, the Romanesque church around the corner from the Baroque wing, and the view from the keep of the full panorama of Lake Thun with the Bernese Alps rising behind the southern shore.

The vineyard's primary grape variety is Riesling-Sylvaner, which produces a dry white wine with notable acidity and the mineral character that glacial soils tend to deliver. The Spiez wine cooperative runs tastings from the castle during the season, and the October harvest is the vineyard's most animated period. The claim of approximately 1,000 years of continuous viticulture at Spiez is consistent with the 933 founding date and the documented medieval wine production in this part of the Bernese Oberland — it is plausible without being precisely verifiable, in the way that most ancient viticulture claims are.

The Lake Thun 3 Castles Tour from Interlaken (t1067418) combines Spiez with [Oberhofen Castle](/castles/switzerland/oberhofen-castle) and Thun Castle in a half-day with entry tickets included — the most efficient circuit for visitors who want to see all three major Lake Thun fortifications in a single outing. [Château de Chillon](/castles/switzerland/chateau-de-chillon) at the eastern end of Lake Geneva represents the other great Swiss lakeside castle tradition: larger, more famous, and positioned differently relative to water and mountain, but sharing with Spiez the fundamental combination of water, mountains, medieval walls, and a landscape that was being fought over long before the buildings we visit were constructed.