We’d been to the area around Gruyeres in the past when we went to Montreux and the Cailler chocolate factory in Bulle. Last weekened, we made a trip to the medieval town of Gruyères itself.
I was surprised by how truly small it actually was. From the car park to the castle, it couldn’t have been more than 200 metres.
We first had a coffee stop at the famous cafe from the movie Alien by HR Giger where everything looked like it was made of skeletons. The cappuccino there however was one of the worst we’ve ever had.
We then made our way up to the castle and imagined how the counts of Gruyeres lived in the past.
The views from the castle of the surroundings were beautiful.
Next stop was the Gruyere cheese factory – Le Maison du Gruyeres. It brought back memories as I’d been here as an 8 year old child. We were each given a pack of cheese with 3 different maturity lengths of 6 months, 8 months and 10 months. I thought it was a nice touch and the least they could do for charging an adult 7chf to enter when all we saw were machines and read from signs (although the audio guide was included).
Some interesting facts included:
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Cows eat 100kg of grass, drink 100 litres of water and produce 85litres of milk daily (There is actually that much grass???!)
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400 litres f milk = One 35 kg round of Gruyere AOP cheese
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12 litres of milk = 1 kg Gruyere AOP cheese
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The Gruyere cheese is produced throughout the year by 170 village cheese makers in the AOP region. It is ready for sale after 5 months and can be consumed up to 16 months or more according to your tastes. The Gruyere AOP production counts on 2200 milk producers who deliver 345 million litres of milk. This represents 870’000 wheels.
