Our first stop was the Gruyeres cheese factory with an informative tour and yummy samples!Then we had time to visit the picturesque town of Gruyeres. There were two highlights.
The first was a big surprise:Museum H R Giger, which housed the magnificent art of surrealist HR Giger, who did the art for the film "Aliens." Since we are not up on science fiction or mythology, his name was not familiar to us and his work was shocking, odd, amazing and magnificent.It was hard to imagine someone with such a creative mind and artistic ability. We were glad to stumble upon this.
The second was the Castle of Gruyeres. You might say that if you have seen one, you have seen them all, but actually each castle has it's own story. (I am just glad I never had to learn Swiss history; it's very complex!)The castle's history goes back to the 11th century. Now the canton owns it and has maintained it beautifully. It is amazing how many artifacts from the Middle Ages have been preserved in such good condition.
From Gryueres we went to the town of Broc where Nestle's chocolate factory is located. Known as the House of Cailler, it is a new production facility opened in 2010. At that time, they created a new tour for visitors with a most creative multimedia presentation giving us the history of chocolate. (Did you know that Cortez took the cocoa bean to Spain? And did you know that the cocoa drink was considered too dangerous for women to drink until the pope ruled that it was OK!). The tour was very informative and the samples exceedingly generous. I never knew there were so many types of chocolate! (it was a bit like wine tasting!)A relaxing train ride took us back to Montreux, where we boarded a train for Geneva - our home for the next four nights and our last venue before heading for the U.S.
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Location:The chocolate train to Gruyeres
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