Right after 

Innertkirchen it is joined by its first major tributary, the Gamderwasser. Less than 1
kilometre (0.62 mi) later the river carves through a limestone ridge in the Aare
Gorge (German: Aareschlucht).[2] It is here that the Aare proves itself to be more than just a
river, as it attracts thousands of tourists annually to the causeways through the gorge. [3] A
little past Meiringen, near Brienz, the river expands into Lake Brienz. Near the west end of the
lake it indirectly receives its first important tributary, the Lütschine, by the Lake of Brienz. It
then runs across the swampy plain of the Bödeli (Swiss German diminutive for ground)
between Interlaken and Unterseen before flowing into Lake Thun.[2]
Near the west end of Lake Thun, the river indirectly receives the waters of the Kander, which
has just been joined by the Simme, by the Lake of Thun. Lake Thun marks the head of
navigation.[5] On flowing out of the lake it passes through Thun, and then flows through the
city of Bern, passing beneath eighteen bridges and around the steeply-flanked peninsula on
which the Old City of Berne is located. River swimming in the Aare is popular in Bern, and the
river is sometimes full of bathers on summer days. The river soon changes its northwesterly
flow for a due westerly direction, but after receiving the Saane or La Sarine it turns north until
it nears Aarberg. There, in one of the major Swiss engineering feats of the 19th century,
the Jura water correction, the river, which had previously rendered the countryside north of
Bern a swampland through frequent flooding, was diverted by the Aare-Hagneck Canal into
the Lac de Bienne. From the upper end of the lake, at Nidau, the river issues through
the Nidau-Büren Canal, also called the Aare Canal,[3] and then runs east to Büren. The lake
absorbs huge amounts of eroded gravel and snowmelt that the river brings from the Alps, and
the former swamps have become fruitful plains: they are known as the "vegetable garden of
Switzerland".