Each story is rooted in real local history and landmarks
A child discovers that the red bricks of Schloss Burgdorf were unlike anything the medieval builders had ever seen. Through a magic brick, they travel back to the year 1200 and help Duke Berchtold V build his castle, learning why he chose this bold new material that would make the fortress glow red above the Emme for eight centuries.
A restless child arrives at Burgdorf Castle in 1801 expecting punishment, but finds a white-haired teacher who throws away all the textbooks and says 'First we think, then we read.' Together they discover learning through head, hand, and heart -- and the child realizes that the greatest classroom in Switzerland is a medieval castle.
During the Burgdorferkrieg of 1383, a child trapped inside the besieged castle must find a secret passage along the Emme river to carry a message to the outside world. Over 45 harrowing days, they discover courage, witness the true cost of war, and learn how the sale of a castle for 37,800 guilders changed the fate of Switzerland.
A child on a school trip to an Emmental show dairy accidentally shrinks to the size of a bacterium and travels inside a wheel of Emmentaler. From the inside, they watch the tiny Propionibacterium at work, blowing carbon dioxide bubbles that become the famous holes, and must find their way out before the cheese is sealed for its months of aging.
Standing between the castle hill and the Gysnaufluehe cliffs, a child realizes the two rock formations are ancient sleeping giants who once guarded the entrance to the Emmental. When the Emme rises to its highest level in 300 years, the giants stir in their sleep, and the child must convince them the valley is still worth protecting.
At a Hornussen match near Burgdorf, a child's strike sends the puck soaring beyond the field and over the rolling Emmental hills at 300 km/h. Chasing after the buzzing hornet through farmsteads and cheese dairies, the child traces the sport's origins all the way back to 1625, when two men were fined for playing on a Sunday.
In 1899, a child boards the very first electric train from Burgdorf to Thun, marvelling as the locomotive glides silently where horses once strained. At each station, Professor Blattner explains how water from the Kander river became lightning in the wires, and the child witnesses the dawn of a new age on Europe's first fully electric railway.
A child staying overnight in the Burgdorf Castle youth hostel hears footsteps echoing through the old corridors. Following them leads to encounters with Pestalozzi's ghost students reciting lessons, a Kyburg knight polishing his armour, and finally Duke Berchtold himself, each sharing one lesson about what the castle has witnessed over 800 years.
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