What a day we had today!! We went to the cheese factory, chocolate factory and then Gruyere castle 🏰
The day started off with a lovely breakfast on the patio of the place we were staying at. She brought out three home-made jams: strawberry, apricot and quince. And then some home-made looking bread, cheese, butter and yogurt. Gruyere cheese of course 👌 She also brought us some lovely orange juice and coffee for Graeme and tea for me. We asked for milk and she brought out milk that had just been milked the day before! While it was a very different breakfast to our normal, it was all such high quality and very nice 🥰
We then set out to meet Harri and Leo at the cheese factory, where we would begin our day. We had got day passes, which allowed us access to the cheese and chocolate factory, castle and transport for a day (transport for two days we later found out).
We had to go up and down this steep gravel hill from the trainstation to our accommodation 😅 It was a real struggle with our suitcases 🧳
We started the day off at the Gruyere cheese factory, where we all got samples for 6, 9 and 12 months mature cheese. Even Daniel! We got to see the process of the cheese being made which was very exciting!
Here Samuel was ringing a cow bell.
Afterwards we decided to go straight to the chocolate factory to make sure we could get a slot for that day. So we headed to the bus.
We then had to take a train. There were some beautiful houses!!
Leo looking after Daniel while we all went to the toilet before starting the tour.
We managed to go just before a large group came which was great! The tour starts with a production of cocoa being founded by the Aztecs, to a super expensive drinking chocolate for the wealthy across Europe and then progresses to chocolate as we know it by the Swiss.
We then got to a room where we got to try a cocoa bean, super bitter, and roasted almonds and hazelnuts. They told us how the chocolates were made using these ingredients after that. We got to see a chocolate branch being made (down below). And then we were able to sample three. I got three for Daniel of course 😅
Chocolate wall.
We then got to a corridor with a sample of a milk chocolate where we were told to use all our senses to appreciate the chocolate 🥰
Here we are able to sample lots of different types of chocolates 🍫 Although three were coffee ones which was disappointing. My favourite was the chocomel ❤️
I thought Joshua would have loved this car! But it was too hot really to be out in the sun ☀️ , so we decided to go to the train back to Gruyere so we could go to the castle 🏰. While we were waiting Graeme, the kids and I went to cool ourselves down in a little fountain. It was sooo refreshing 🥰
Harri, Leo and Samuel waiting for the train.
We then took the bus - the boys tried to make themselves more comfortable 😂
We then spent some time in the old town of Gruyere looking in shops and getting some drinks to cool ourselves down. Afterwards we went to the castle.
Daniel fit perfectly in the little drinks dispenser used for soldiers 😂
The dining room. I hadn’t realised it at the time, but Harri later told me that the images in this room told a story of the history of Gruyere.
The courtyard.
The galleries.
Walking along a wall.
The castle gardens.
It was dinner time so we went to a different restaurant for fondue (the first place was better because it tasted more white wine based) and spaghetti for the kids (pasghetti as Samuel says).
On the way home.
Tonight was much easier with the kids and I stayed up a little later than even Graeme, who fell down exhausted on the bed at just after 9, to finish the last two blog posts 👌
Tomorrow we leave to Annemasse 🙏
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