Chocolate and Cheese in Gruyères

Earlier this month, four of us from the Korbel Crew spent a Sunday exploring Gruyères, in the mountains North-Northeast of Montreux, about a 90 minute drive from Geneva. We rented a car for the day and were 'oooh'-ing and 'ahhhh'-ing as we made our way there. Gruyères is gorgeous, as is the area surrounding it. I very highly recommend the trip if you're in the region of Lake Geneva!

Our first stop was the Cailler chocolate factory, ten minutes outside of Gruyères in a small town called Broc. For only 6 CHF, we went on an amusing, if historically inaccurate, interactive tour of the history of the Cailler chocolate company and of chocolate in Switzerland. The best part came at the end... The room will a buffet table of chocolates and unlimited tastings!! Even though it was only 11:30am, we gorged ourselves on the samples. I only went around the table once, but I definitely could have eaten more than I did, haha. Their dark chocolates were inventive and delicious!

After Cailler, we made our way into Gruyères and visited the cheese factory, where some of Gruyères' Gruyère is produced. :)

The beautiful Château de Gruyères, perched on top of a hill.

After more interactive exhibits (including an adorable "Swiss cow" who narrated the audio guide in French) and more tastings, and we were getting a good feel for the main products of the region; chocolate and cheese! 

When we finished wandering through the cheese factory, we walked up the hill and into Gruyères-proper for some explorations in the village. Talk about picturesque! The old town is perched on top of a big hill, with a castle at the highest part and beautiful green fields and sharp mountains surrounding the valley below. Gorgeous, and just as lovely as you would imagine rural Switzerland to be.

The goats and cows all had bells on their collars. The jingling noise that
the bells make is so cute and SO Swiss!

Looking up town toward the château.

We enjoyed a picnic lunch in one of the small plazas before heading to the top of town to check out the castle. Beautiful scenery abounded, much to our delight!

The flag of Gruyères is gorgeous- a white crane on a red background.

The castle and gardens were beautiful. I'm always amazed at the scale of castles in Europe, and their age, too! Modern buildings seem so bland compared to medieval châteaux!

The last place we checked out in town before heading back to Geneva was the H.R. Giger bar, an offshoot of the H.R. Giger Museum across the street. H.R. Giger was the guy who came up with the creepy creatures from the original "Alien" movies, as well as a host of other gothic-fantasy creations. The bar was so crazy looking and original. I loved it, even if it was a bit creepy, "Alien"-like, and morbid-looking with all the faux bones everywhere. It would have been a great place to try a cocktail if we had stayed in town later in the evening. 

We enjoyed an afternoon café au lait at the bar, accompanied by the regional specialty treat of meringues with double Gruyère creme. It was mighty tasty. :)

Also happening in Geneva last week: five of us treated ourselves to Swiss fondue, complete with an amazing regional wine. We were stuffed full of cheese and bread by the end of the meal; it was so good, and worth every penny!

On Thursday after work, I went to the evening wine and cheese market with most of the Korbel Crew and several of my coworkers. I finally discovered the joys of this market two weeks ago and am hoping to make it a weekly tradition as a means of welcoming Friday and the weekend in the best way ever. :)

Lastly, on Saturday of this past weekend, I finally went to Bain des Paquis for a swim with some of the Crew. I even jumped off of one of the diving platforms, seen in the middle-right side of the picture below. It was scary to look down at the water from 20ish feet high, but exhilarating to jump in!

On Sunday afternoon, I was able to move into my housing situation for the rest of my time in Switzerland. I'm renting a room in the town of Gland from an extremely nice woman. The whole apartment is really beautiful, but I'll post pictures of the place in a future blog post.

In just under one week, Kris and his mom will be arriving in Geneva for a three-week Swiss/French/Hungarian travel extravaganza! I am SO excited to have them coming out for a visit!!