of the Old City peninsula is the , a weir which provides water for the small Matte hydroelectric power plant. 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, 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". From here the Aare flows northeast for a long distance, past the ambassador town Solothurn (below which the Grosse Emme flows in on the right), Aarburg (where it is joined by the Wigger), Olten, Aarau, near which is the junction with the Suhre, and Wildegg, where the Seetal Aabach falls in on the right. A short distance further, below Brugg, it receives first the Reuss, its major tributary, and shortly afterwards the Limmat, its second strongest tributary. It now turns due north, and soon becomes itself a tributary of the Rhine, which it even surpasses in volume when the two rivers unite downstream from Koblenz (Switzerland), opposite Waldshut in Germany. The Rhine, in turn, empties into the North Sea after crossing into the Netherlands. Tributaries Limmat (after and northeast of Brugg, and northwest of Baden) Reppisch Sihl Alp Minster Lake Zurich Linthkanal Lake Walen Linth Löntsch Sernf Flätschbach Seez Reuss (after and northeast of Brugg, and northwest of Baden) Lorze Kleine Emme Lake Lucerne Sarner Aa Engelberger Aa Muota Schächen Chärstelenbach Göschener Reuss Aabach (coming from Seetal, in Wildegg) Bünz Suhre (after and north of Aarau) Wyna Aabach (from the left in Aarau) Stegbach Dünnern (in Olten) Wigger (right before Aarburg) Murg (before, west of Murgenthal) Rot (Roggwil) Langete (Langenthal) Ursenbach (Kleindietwil) Rotbach (Huttwil) (Grosse) Emme (after, east of Solothurn) Lake of Bienne La Suze (in Biel/Bienne, right