Taubenloch (French: Gorges du Taubenloch) is a

gorge A canyon (from ; archaic British English spelling: ''cañon''), or gorge, is a deep cleft between escarpments or cliffs resulting from weathering and the erosive activity of a river over geologic time scales. Rivers have a natural tendency to c ...

in the

Canton of Bern The canton of Bern or Berne (german: Kanton Bern; rm, Chantun Berna; french: canton de Berne; it, Canton Berna) is one of the 26 cantons forming the Swiss Confederation. Its capital city, Bern, is also the ''de facto'' capital of Switzerland. ...

, above

Biel/Bienne Biel/Bienne (official bilingual wording; , ) is a town and a municipality in the Biel/Bienne administrative district in the canton of Bern in Switzerland. Biel/Bienne lies on the language boundary between the French-speaking and German-spea ...

in Switzerland. It crosses the first

Jura Mountain The Jura Mountains ( , , , ; french: Massif du Jura; german: Juragebirge; it, Massiccio del Giura, rm, Montagnas da Jura) are a sub-alpine mountain range a short distance north of the Western Alps and mainly demarcate a long part of the Fre ...

chain, as considered from the

Swiss Plateau The Swiss Plateau or Central Plateau (german: Schweizer Mittelland; french: plateau suisse; it, altopiano svizzero) is one of the three major landscapes in Switzerland, lying between the Jura Mountains and the Swiss Alps. It covers about 30% of ...

Location

The gorge covers a length of around 2 kilometres between Frinvillier (altitude: 517 m) and Bözingen, a suburb of Biel/Bienne (altitude 447 m). The Suze flows deep in the gorge, originating in the Erguel valley near

Saint-Imier Saint-Imier () is a municipality in the Jura bernois administrative district in the canton of Bern in Switzerland. It is located in the French-speaking Bernese Jura (''Jura Bernois''). The Observatoire Astronomique de Mont-Soleil is located ab ...

and finally flowing to the

Lake of Bienne __NOTOC__ Lake Bienne or Lake Biel (french: Lac de Bienne ; german: Bielersee) is a lake in western Switzerland. Together with Lake Morat and Lake Neuchâtel, it is one of the three large lakes in the Jura region of Switzerland. It lies approxim ...

History

The gorge is one of the rare natural crossings from the Swiss Plateau to the Jura mountains between

Schaffhausen Schaffhausen (; gsw, Schafuuse; french: Schaffhouse; it, Sciaffusa; rm, Schaffusa; en, Shaffhouse) is a town with historic roots, a municipality in northern Switzerland, and the capital of the canton of the same name; it has an estimat ...

and

Geneva Geneva ( ; french: Genève ) frp, Genèva ; german: link=no, Genf ; it, Ginevra ; rm, Genevra is the second-most populous city in Switzerland (after Zürich) and the most populous city of Romandy, the French-speaking part of Switzerland. Situ ...

. The area was already well colonised at the time of the

Roman Empire The Roman Empire ( la, Imperium Romanum ; grc-gre, Βασιλεία τῶν Ῥωμαίων, Basileía tôn Rhōmaíōn) was the post- Republican period of ancient Rome. As a polity, it included large territorial holdings around the Medite ...

: one of the main

Roman roads Roman roads ( la, viae Romanae ; singular: ; meaning "Roman way") were physical infrastructure vital to the maintenance and development of the Roman state, and were built from about 300 BC through the expansion and consolidation of the Roman Re ...

from Rome led through

Helvetii The Helvetii ( , Gaulish: *''Heluētī''), anglicized as Helvetians, were a Celtic tribe or tribal confederation occupying most of the Swiss plateau at the time of their contact with the Roman Republic in the 1st century BC. According to Julius ...

Aventicum Aventicum was the largest town and capital of Roman Switzerland (Helvetia or Civitas Helvetiorum). Its remains are beside the modern town of Avenches. The city was probably created ''ex nihilo'' in the early 1st century AD, as the capital of t ...

(

Avenches Avenches () is a Swiss municipality in the canton of Vaud, located in the district of Broye-Vully. History The roots of Avenches go back to the Celts. A tribe of Helvetians had built a settlement on the hills of Bois de Châtel, south of th ...

). It continued through Morat, Chiètres and Kallnach to Solodorum (

Solothurn , neighboring_municipalities = Bellach, Biberist, Feldbrunnen-Sankt Niklaus, Langendorf, Rüttenen, Zuchwil , twintowns = Heilbronn (Germany), Kraków (Poland), Le Landeron (Switzerland) Solothurn ( , ; french: Soleure ; it, Soletta ; ...

) and

Vindonissa Vindonissa (from a Gaulish toponym in *''windo-'' "white") was a Roman legion camp, vicus and later a bishop's seat at modern Windisch, Switzerland. The remains of the camp are listed as a heritage site of national significance. The city of B ...

(

Windisch Windisch may refer to: * Windisch (surname) (including a list of people with the name) * Windisch, Switzerland, a municipality in the canton of Aargau * Windisch (ethnonym), German word Wends for Slavs * Windisch Kamnitz, German name of Srbská K ...

), along the eastern part of the Seeland (lake land). Via Witzwil, a second road crossed the Seeland between the Lake of Neuchâtel and the

lake of Morat Lake Morat or Lake Murten (french: Lac de Morat ; german: Murtensee) is a lake located in the cantons of Fribourg and Vaud in the west of Switzerland. It is named after the small bilingual town of Murten/Morat on its southern shore. It is the sm ...

. A spur road from Petinesca went through the steep gorge of Taubenloch, crossed the Jura through the '' Col de Pierre Pertuis'' pass, and lead to

Augusta Raurica Augusta Raurica is a Roman Empire, Roman archaeological site and an open-air museum in Switzerland located on the south bank of the Rhine, Rhine river about 20 km east of Basel near the villages of Augst and Kaiseraugst. It is the site of ...

and what is now modern

Germany Germany, officially the Federal Republic of Germany (FRG),, is a country in Central Europe. It is the most populous member state of the European Union. Germany lies between the Baltic and North Sea to the north and the Alps to the sou ...

along the

Rhine The Rhine ; french: Rhin ; nl, Rijn ; wa, Rén ; li, Rien; rm, label=Sursilvan, Rein, rm, label=Sutsilvan and Surmiran, Ragn, rm, label=Rumantsch Grischun, Vallader and Puter, Rain; it, Reno ; gsw, Rhi(n), including in Alsatian dialect, Al ...

Origin of the name

The name ''Taubenloch'' was found for the first time in a document dated 1532. Several versions as to its provenience are still being debated. *Daubenloch, from the German words ''Daube'', meaning

precipice In geography and geology, a cliff is an area of rock which has a general angle defined by the vertical, or nearly vertical. Cliffs are formed by the processes of weathering and erosion, with the effect of gravity. Cliffs are common on co ...

trench A trench is a type of excavation or in the ground that is generally deeper than it is wide (as opposed to a wider gully, or ditch), and narrow compared with its length (as opposed to a simple hole or pit). In geology, trenches result from ero ...

, and ''Loch'', meaning hole or cavity. *''Die Taube'': according to local legend, a young man loved a young girl who was so beautiful, charming and gracious that her nickname was ''die Taube /'' fr.'' la Colombe'' (the

dove Columbidae () is a bird family consisting of doves and pigeons. It is the only family in the order Columbiformes. These are stout-bodied birds with short necks and short slender bills that in some species feature fleshy ceres. They primaril ...

). They wanted to get married, but she was chased away by the despotic Sire of nearby Rondchâtel and found a sorry escape from his clutches in throwing herself to death down the gorge. The gorge was henceforth called the ''Taubenlochschlucht'' (The Gorge of the Dove) in her memory. *Similar, but less romantic: (''Taube''), also meaning pigeon, in reference to birds which allegedly nested in the gorge.

Hiking

A private non-profit corporation was founded in 1889, La société d’exploitation des gorges du Taubenloch, for the only purpose of establishing a hiking path throughout the gorge. Since 1927, part of the Taubenlochschlucht is one of the protected natural sites in Switzerland.

Transjurane T16

Traffic runs through either side of Taubenloch, route 18 (south) and route 6 (north). The "

Transjurane The Kingdom of Upper Burgundy was a Frankish dominion established in 888 by the Welf king Rudolph I of Burgundy on the territory of former Middle Francia. It grew out of the Carolingian margraviate of Transjurane Burgundy (''Transjurania'', ...

" motorway project is expected to be finalised between 2025 and 2030, by following the route of the gorge and linking up what is now the E27.

Sources and references

Tourisme Bienne-Seeland: Excursion gorges du Taubenloch
* ttps://web.archive.org/web/20110706222738/http://www.vol.be.ch/site/fr/71d_o_13_tubeloch.pdf BE Division forrestière agenda de sécurisation / route romainebr>Nouvel éboulement: fermeture 01.08.2009La légende de la petite colombe
{{coord, 47.157778, 7.264722, display=title Canyons and gorges of Switzerland Landforms of the canton of Bern Tourist attractions in the Canton of Bern