Grand-Hotel Giessbach

19 April 2021

The Grand Hotel Giessbach is near the famous Giessbach-waterfalls between the mountains and the Lake of Brienz.

Many visitors were rowed across the lake to the waterfalls around 1800 by the famous Brienz women rowers. The Giessbach-waterfalls were lit in the evening from 1840.

The Grand-Hotel Giessbach was renovated by the architect Horace Edouard Davinet’s (1839-1922) in 1873, including its gasworks, a large laundry, several baths, several bathrooms and a covered walkway in ‘foresto-rustico’ style.

To make the hotel more accessible, the owners also built a funicular from the boat landing to the hotel in 1879. The first electric lights came on in 1884. The hotel closed in 1979, however.

The foundation Giessbach acquired the Giessbach Hotel and its property. A year later, the hotel was reopened with the financial support of the office for the preservation of historic buildings (Denkmalpflege).

(Source and further information: https://swiss-historic-hotels.ch).