Pictures from this day can be found here.
Despite being totally full of high calorie food last night, we were at the hotel breakfast table again trying out some local dairy products. We experimented with two kinds of yogurt made from Gruyeres milk. Kuniko had blueberry and I had chocolate, which turned out to be so-so, but an intriguing experience nonetheless. The coffee was really good, too. They serve a hot pot of coffee at your table, and they also give you a hot pot of milk, so it is up to you to set the ratio that you like. The milk is hot and frothy, and fresh from a cow, so it made for some very good morning drinking.
Our goal on this day was to take a tour of the local dairy, and relax the rest of the day. We managed most of it, with the exception of a little problem that we ran into. The dairy was back at the train station, so we geared up and went down the hill to check it out. Already there were some tours arriving in a bus to look around, and we ended up behind a big tour. It was a very simple tour, with some (excuse me) cheesy audio commentary, but pretty impressive to see the operation. They were making cheese while we were there, although the process was a little too long for us to sit around and see the whole thing. As part of the tour they gave you three samples of cheese – Gruyeres cheese aged for six months, ten months and twelve months. It was interesting, although when we tasted them it seemed like maybe they had made a mistake in packaging – the ten month cheese was very smooth, but the other two were still quite salty.
In the gift shop we bought some cheese as souvenirs, as well as our very own mini-raclette maker to experiment with back in Japan. Afterwards it was back up the hill to tour the Gruyeres castle. There was a huge international group there while we were touring, and they set up a big lunch party that we would have liked to join. The castle turned out to be much bigger than I had previously thought, and we spent a lot of time exploring it. Once we finished touring the castle we walked around town a bit, and then I made a fateful decision to walk five kilometers to the next town, as they also have a dairy that you can tour.
We set off from Gruyeres and walked down the hill to the train station, and then began walking towards the next town, called Moleson Village. At first the walk was very pleasant – along a river and through a small town filled with interesting houses and friendly people. However after half an hour of walking the sidewalk disappeared, and the road suddenly started going up a long steep hill. As we continued up the hill we passed a sign warning of a 12% grade ahead, and cars started passing us at dangerous speeds. It was a warm day, and so I was sweating pretty good, Kuniko was nervous about walking on the shoulder, and we were torn on whether to continue on or go back. We walked another twenty minutes or so, and then finally gave up. There was no end in sight, and the visit to the town was kind of arbitrary anyway, so we turned around and walked all the way back to Gruyeres. There we stopped at the first restaurant we could find and sat down on the patio to drink beers in the shade and rest up. I felt good after the exercise (especially considering last night’s dessert) and the beer was refreshing. We went ahead and ordered a slice of cheese quiche to go along with our beers, and it was excellent – they know how to do cheese around here.
In keeping with our goal to relax we went back to the hotel in the afternoon and took a long nap with the window open and the mountains surrounding the town in the distance – very relaxing. Now and then a horsefly would wander into the room from outside, but soon enough it would buzz right back out again, so a good environment to relax.
We woke up with a tiny bit of an appetite, so dinner was back in town at another restaurant. This time we ordered fondue (again) along with a raclette. The raclette burner they had here was a little different, but the results were the same – delicious melted cheese… yum. We also had a pretty good Swiss Pinot Noir with dinner. While we ate we noticed that the other patrons of the restaurant weren’t being served, and we had gotten our food almost right away. We were the center of attention as a lot of hungry people watched us pig out, but we didn’t mind. I’m used to getting a lot of attention when I go out in public.
We even had room for a cup of ice cream from the local grocery store before heading back and falling asleep. Despite the mountain hike it was a pretty relaxing day, but the calories keep on coming, and we were starting to get worried about our long-term health… two weeks of delicious foods is sure to cause some problems, right?
