St. Beatus Caves

Entrance to the caves

Beatus Caves, 1785

Share certificate for 50 francs from the Beatus Cave Cooperative from October 12, 1904

The St. Beatus Caves are a group of stalactite caves below Beatenberg near Interlaken in the canton of Bern .

The cave system is located on the northern edge of Lake Thun . It is accessible with a guided tour around 1 km into the interior of the Niederhorn massif. The legend has it that the Holy here Beatus have died. Part of the Camino de Santiago runs below the caves .

History and legend

According to legend, a gruesome fire-breathing dragon is said to have lived in the caves in the Middle Ages . Saint Beatus met him with the cross and invoked the Holy Trinity. Thereupon the dragon fled and rushed with a roar into Lake Thun and drowned. Saint Beatus is said to have built his hermitage in the cave and lived there until his death. At the entrance to the cave, the grave of St. Beatus and a replica of his cell can be viewed today. Up until the Reformation there was a pilgrimage chapel in the cave in honor of the saint, which was subordinate to the Interlaken Monastery. The Bern government had the chapel torn down in 1528 and walled up the cave entrance to prevent pilgrimages. The Catholic Unterwaldners did not allow themselves to be deterred from further pilgrimages and broke open the wall again; so the walling up and breaking up went on several times. As a counterbalance to the cult around the Beatus Caves, the Bern government had an Evangelical Reformed church built on the Beatenberg from 1534 to 1535 .

The "Captain's Grotto" belonging to the Beatus Caves is named after Johannes Knechtenhofer , the first steamship captain on Lake Thun.