Sunday, August 7 2011
More Swiss fun! As we’ve mentioned before, this has been our
Summer of Switzerland, so we’ve been trying to get in as many local travels as
possible to really get to know the country we’ve called home for over a year. One trip we’ve been meaning to do for quite
awhile, but just haven’t squeezed it in yet, was a day trip the Gruyère region to visit a cheese
factory, chocolate factory, and an underrated castle.
We took the train early on a
Sunday morning heading east along Lake Geneva (it’s surprising to think how
many times we’ve now taken this route).
The Gruyère region is north of the eastern end of Lake Geneva. Actually, on the train ride in, we passed
through the town of Châtel-Saint-Denis,
which is right next to the Le Bivouac Campsite we stayed at on our bike tour of lake Geneva.
Our first stop was the
actual town of Gruyères (not to be
confused with the region of Gruyère) for some cheese! If the name Gruyères (pronounced “Gree-air”)
sounds familiar to you, it’s because this cheese is known across the world
(well, definitely in the United States at least). Today it’s mainly produced in France, but as
the name suggests, it originated in this medieval town.
La Maison Du Gruyère cheese factory was literally across the street from
the train station so it was easy to find.
We were told that cheese making took place in the morning so we quickly
made our way through the tour to watch the cheese making process unfold.
Once you understand the
cheese making process, you realize that it’s pretty much the same process for
every cheese maker out there. To
summarize, first you heat the milk, then add the “starter” which begins the
curdling process. Let the milk sit for a
specific amount of time until the curds have formed, then stir with a sharp
object to separate the curds from the whey.
Those first steps take place in the two large mixing pots seen
below. Next, place the curds in the
forming cases and add pressure to squeeze even more whey out of the cheese and
eventually it becomes as condensed as needed.
You can see these white forming cases to the left of the large mixing
pots. After a salt bath and a long shelf
life, you basically have cheese. Simple,
huh?
 |
| The aging cellar |
 |
| The salt bath |
(This video shows the curd/whey mixture being sucked from the mixing pot to the forming cases)
All the Gruyère cheese is made
with milk from the Alpine cows like those we’ve seen on our hikes around
Switzerland this summer. The cow
statistics we learned were staggering!
Fact #1: a cow eats 100 kg of grass and drinks 85 liters of water PER
DAY(!) which allows them to produce 25 liters of milk each day. While this is a lot of “materials”, it only
translates into a relatively small amount of cheese – about 2 kg of cheese from
25 liters of milk.
At the end of the tour we
were able to take a peek into the aging cellar.
We watched with curiosity as an unmanned robot went about its business
of flipping all the cheeses (and for some reason the factory added some eerie
music in the background). :)
We enjoyed our free cheese
samples on our way towards the medieval part of the town to see the Gruyères
Castle. On our way to the castle we
found ourselves in one of the quaintest villages we’ve seen in Switzerland so
far. It was enhanced by the natural
mountain beauty peeking through the buildings and the random tastes of Swiss
culture in the form of the Alp horn and other music.
If there’s ever been an out
of place landmark, it’s the H.R. Giger
Museum. Why is it out of place? Well, H.R. Giger is the artist that inspired
the design of Ridley Scott’s ‘Alien’ from the popular movie series. Imagine the surprise when we look one
direction at this stunning Swiss town and landscape, then out of nowhere find
the H.R. Giger museum and café/pub next door, which was decked out with
everything “Giger.” Bizarre.
Once we reached the Castle
we were amazed. Besides Neuschwanstein Castle in Germany, this was easily the most pristine placement of a
castle that we’ve seen to date. The
surrounding mountains and hills were perfect accents to this hilltop castle and
the quaint hedge garden seemed as if it was strait out of a Disney fairytale
movie.
There was even some
interesting history to go along with the atmosphere. We started off the tour with an interesting
video on Gruyères’ history in the region.
Many battles were fought between the different (although now-unified)
cantons of Switzerland, as well as some nearby French towns. Interesting artifacts included:
Three capes of the Golden Fleece Order, part of the war
bounty captured in a battle against the Duke of Burgundy (France).
Minted coins by the last
count of Gruyères, Count Michael (1572).
In financial trouble after squandering his wealth, Michael minted coins
with his image but they quickly became worthless as the more powerful regions
of Bern and Fribourg placed heavy fines on their use.
A severed hand, which had
numerous wild stories told about its origin over time (after modern scientific
study, it turns out that it’s likely the hand of an Egyptian mummy that somehow
made it to Gruyères).
Altogether a pleasant surprise for
an otherwise overlooked castle!
Our final stop of the day
was in Broc to visit the La Maison Cailler. The factory/museum was packed with tourists
but somehow the two of us squeezed in to the next English tour without waiting
more than 5 minutes, while others with larger groups waited at least an
hour.
Once inside we couldn’t help
but think of Willy Wonka’s chocolate factory, but this was not nearly as
eccentric/creepy. We made our way
through a well-designed set of exhibits/rooms that creatively explained the
history of Callier chocolate in the Gruyère region. The most interesting part of the tour was the
live “assembly line” of chocolate making on display which ended with a crazy
robot arm picking up chocolates (video below).
The tour culminated with a room of “free” (included in the price)
chocolate samples that we ate until we literally felt a little sick. There were so many to try!
We quickly bought a
selection of our favorites and ran to catch the next train headed back to
Geneva. This turned out to be by far one
of our favorite day trips from Geneva and we highly recommend it to any of our
future guests! :)
