Mad accordianists, chocolate and the house of cheese

Today was a marvellous day. You'll have to forgive any mistakes or poorly phrased sentences because I'm absolutely stuffed.

Today we went to Gruyère to see what we could see, inspired mostly by the knowledge that the Caillers chocolate factory in Broc is closed to tourists from now until (I suppose) next spring. In addition to this, Gruyère is famous for its cheese, and I like cheese, and I like Gruyère cheese, and there is a factory in the town Gruyères itself. There are also quite a few hiking trails in the area, which we wanted to do. So we did.

Chocolate, as it turns out, is marvellous. Fantastic. Free chocolate is even better, especially if that free delicious chocolate is laid out in trays for you to eat. Ambient lighting and music from the c1930-50 educational videos in the background helps things on a bit too. And now I know how chocolate is made.

On then to Gruyères, on, by the way, the most practical of all Swiss trains. Holds people, has seats, has heating and goes. The redeeming aspects of these trains can be found in the adorable little stations in each tiny village. If I make it with the photos I can show you what I mean. The scenery goes a long way in making the experience superb rather than just plain touristy.

Only this day, the scenery was a little more eerie - there was a fog that came and went in intensity but mostly sat around the tops of trees. So when we were thinking about taking Le Sentier des Sorcières (the witches' path) it rather seemed apropriate.

All this as an aside, CHEESE! I love cheese. I don't think there's really much more to say, only that there was an audio tour narrated by a cow called Cherry. She was a little bit obnoxious but getting free samples (again, but they were less generous in the giving) made up for it.

So, we then went and looked at Gruyères proper, or actually the old village. There's a castle and battlements and for some silly reason all I could think to compare it to, badly phrased - how about what I could think about it's existence, was how much it looked like the real thing. As though it was a movie set. I got over that soon enough when the fog lifted for a while.

We had decided to take Le Sentier des Comptes or "the way of the Counts" so we walked. We had to get directions a few times and maps from various places because the signs were confusing, but we were on our way eventually. So we walked. And we walked. It was uphill for an hour and a bit, but through a beautiful forest called Chésalles. When we reached the edge of the forest we found that we'd missed the turnoff for Le Sentier des Comptes in the fog and were now faced with a choice between walking back to Gruyère (by another, not so foresty route) or going up the mountain a little more to see if we could find a working chairlift at this time of year.

We walked back.

Being so tired after our trekking and full from all the chocolate and cheese we ate, of course Claire and I decided to go out to see François Gaillard - a manic accordian player who performs humourous songs and perfomance poetry. All french, and in a wonderful little theatre on the edge of Lausanne that may once have been someone's garage, being at the back of the house. It was absolutely magnificent.