A Typically Swiss Day: Cheese, Chocolate and Alphorn in La Gruyère

When my friends asked what I wanted for my birthday, I did not ask for a thing. I asked for a day out. The idea I put to them was a trip from Basel to La Gruyère, the cheese country of Fribourg, combining a short hike with a cheese factory, a chocolate factory and whatever else the region felt like offering. Then I found out that an Alphorn gathering was planned in the old town of Gruyères that same afternoon, with dozens of players due to perform. It was probably too much for one day. We went anyway, trying to use the time well without running ourselves into the ground.

I am not exaggerating when I say I was dancing and jumping for much of it, chocolate museum and cheese factory included. Few days manage to be so thoroughly Swiss. Even the Rösti I ordered at the end came with a small Swiss flag stuck in it, and we ate fondue in summer, which nobody here would call typical, but when the cheese is Le Gruyère you make exceptions.

Getting there, and where the two factories sit

Gruyères is under an hour by train from Fribourg and roughly two and a half hours from Basel. The route runs Basel, Bern, Bulle via Fribourg, then Gruyères. On the day itself we used a slightly different line to reach the first stop, which I will come to.

The two factories are not in the same village, which is the detail that decides your timetable. Maison Cailler, the chocolate museum, is beside Broc-Fabrique station. La Maison du Gruyère, the cheese factory, stands 30 metres from the railway station at Place de la Gare 3, 1663 Pringy-Gruyères. Between them is about half an hour by train. The Cailler address is Rue Jules Bellet 7, 1636 Broc.

The plan we drew up

Several constraints shaped it. Hiking is better in the morning, before the heat. The cheese factory only shows the actual making at set times, with the stages scheduled from 9 am to 2.30 pm; after that you see the equipment and learn from the interactive displays. Small groups could not reserve in advance, so queueing had to be built in. And the Alphorn players were due to close their gathering between 5.45 and 6 pm.

So the plan was this: the 7.30 train from Basel SBB through Bern and Fribourg to Charmey, arriving at 9.55; a hike through the Jaunbach gorge until about noon; Maison Cailler from 12.30 to 1.30; a train to Gruyères; the cheese factory by 2 pm to catch the demonstration until 2.30; then the castle and old town, with the Alphorn performance before the closing ceremony.

The day had a mascot of sorts: a travel journal my friends had given me, which I was impatient to start filling.

What actually happened

Some of the group were arriving by car, so parking and the ease of onward transport had to be considered. We changed the meeting point to Broc-Fabrique rather than Charmey, hiked a stretch of the Jaunbach gorge from there, and visited the chocolate factory first. The route became Basel SBB, Bern, Fribourg, Bulle, Broc-Fabrique.

Finding a parking spot, working out the walking directions and hiking to the meeting point cost us about an hour before we had properly begun. Other parts of the plan slipped too.

The Jaunbach gorge

The full trail runs Charmey, Lake Montsalvens, Broc and Gruyères, about three hours of walking, and it belongs on any list of the best hikes in Switzerland. Short of time, we walked only part of the gorge and returned to our starting point for the chocolate museum. Green on every side, wooden bridges, tunnels cut through rock: the scenery reminded me of the Vintgar gorge in Slovenia, another country worth putting on your list.

Maison Cailler: history, effects and far too much tasting

My excitement climbed from the moment we reached the site and found giant chocolate statues in the play area. Tickets were 9 CHF for students and 12 CHF for adults, and we picked up multilingual audio guides. There was barely a queue.

What followed was not an ordinary museum. We stepped into a lift that turned out to be the opening scene of the tour: lights down, sound up, a voice welcoming us in. Animated figures told the story of chocolate and the Aztecs, then how it reached Switzerland, how Cailler makes it now, and how many people around the world are involved. We could see, smell, touch and taste cocoa beans, nuts and chocolate, and at the end we were let loose on the Cailler range, dark and milk and flavoured, taking whatever we liked. It is as close as an adult gets to Willy Wonka's factory.

La Maison du Gruyère, well after the making

By the time we reached the cheese factory it was past 3 pm, so the cheesemakers had finished for the day. The rest of the visit still worked. An audio guide narrated by Cherry, an Alpine cow, led us through the pastures, the flowers and herbs the cows eat, the equipment, and the process on film. At the tasting we were given three cheeses, six, eight and ten months old. The first two pleased me most, the eight-month one especially.

Entry costs about 7 CHF for adults and 6 CHF for students. If you follow the daily production timetable and arrive early enough, you can watch part of the making yourself. Since that day I have also made cheese in Graubünden, which I will write about separately.

Gruyères: castle, Alphorns and Giger

From the cheese factory you walk past the station and uphill to the old town and castle. On some summer Saturdays there are Alphorn performances in the square. The Alphorn is the long wooden horn Alpine farmers once used to call across the valleys; hearing 50 players together was a first for me, and the sound filled the whole town.

We ate a traditional Swiss meal at one of the restaurants around the square and only afterwards realised that the H.R. Giger Museum and Bar were a few hundred metres away. Giger is the artist behind the creatures in Alien. The museum closes at 6 pm and the bar at 8 pm, and the bar's interior looks like a set from a science fiction film; I would happily go back and spend longer in both.

The castle needs a ticket, bought separately or as a combined offer at the cheese factory. We knew we had no time to do it justice, so we had not bought one. The square also has another chocolate maker and a shop full of cowbells and souvenirs.

What the day costs

Transport is the main expense. A one-way ticket from Basel to Gruyères is about 33 CHF with a Half Fare Card and 66 CHF without. Look at Spar Billet and super saver tickets as well; one-way tickets can be found for 27 CHF or less. A day ticket saves buying repeatedly, and a TagesKarte from a Gemeinde costs between 40 and 50 CHF.

• Transport: 40 to 140 CHF
• Chocolate museum: 12 CHF
• Cheese factory: 7 CHF
• Gruyères Castle: 12 CHF, or 16 CHF for a combined cheese factory and castle ticket
• Meal in Gruyères: 20 to 30 CHF

Rösti, for anyone who has not met it, is a Swiss staple of grated potato, often with vegetables or meat added.

What I would do differently

Leaving home an hour earlier would have paid for itself, with room for the hike and a buffer for wrong turns. I would bring more food: our only proper meal came in the evening. And I would check the Giger museum and bar times before the trip, so that both could have had a proper share of the day, with dinner afterwards.

Other ways to work the region

• The vintage Chocolate Train runs from Montreux to Gruyères. At 99 CHF for adults it includes the return journey and entry to both factories, and takes about nine hours.
• In winter the Fondue Train leaves Bulle and travels through the Gruyère region serving fondue and meringue, for 49 CHF.
• The Cheese Trail links La Maison du Gruyère with the Moléson cheese dairy. It takes about two hours and ends with a certificate. From Moléson you can take a cable car for the panorama, or walk further; in summer the cable cars run until 11 pm on Fridays and Saturdays.

That was the birthday trip, and it remains one of the fullest days I have spent in this country. If you are planning something similar, you might also like my notes on where locals go skiing and vacationing, unusual things to do in Basel, Swiss myths and folklore and expat life here. Tell me about your favourite Swiss corner, or ask me anything about this route.