Chocolate and Cheese, part 2

We left the chocolate factory and drove through a couple small, very picturesque towns to arrive at the Gruyere cheese factory.

I really liked the set up of this factory tour.  There were individual headsets to carry around, and you could dial in the number of whatever station you were at, and hear the explanation in your choice of several different languages.  We arrived just as they were cleaning out the large tubs where they actually make the cheese.  But we have seen the milk get stirred and stirred and stirred plenty of times at the Appenzell cheese factory before, so we didn’t feel like we had missed much.  And the guy hosing everything down is strangely fascinating, as well.

Look at all those giant rounds of cheese!  With the admission price, they give you “free” samples of cheese to nibble while you learn all about how it’s made, and the history of Gruyere cheese.  They came in handy, since we were too full of chocolate to stop for lunch, but were starting to get hungry before we were through here. It’s always funny to me what strange things fascinate our family about these kinds of places.  For example, someone spotted this cheese flipping robot, and we were all huddled in front of the glass for a good ten minutes watching it do its thing.

Naturally, we had to spend some time in the gift shop, but we didn’t see anything we absolutely had to have.  Or rather, that I was willing to pay for. 😉  But there was this cheesy photo op we took advantage of.

This was the view just from the parking lot.  And I thought our corner of Switzerland was beautiful.

We had just had fondue the day before, so no one felt like eating at the restaurant attached to the museum.  Instead, we drove to a local Migros and grabbed some picnic items.  It was hilarious to shop in a store that carried products we all recognized, but in a language most of us didn’t speak.  The fun of living in a country that has 4 official languages. 🙂

We literally just pulled off the main road onto a small farming path to eat our lunch.  Our companions didn’t seem to mind our presence.  The girls even let us pet them.  They are so soft! While we ate, we just slowly turned in circles to soak up as much of the view as possible.    That is Gruyere castle in the distance.  We decided to save that for another trip, and took the scenic way home instead.