11 July 2012 - Temperature wise it was like the other
days in Switzerland, cool, around low 20's.
This morning we
got up at 3:00am
to get ready to meet the train at St Imier to go to Montreux. Mathias
drove us to St Imier Train Station where we boarded the train, changing at both
Biel and Lausanne arriving at Montreux. Since we had
about an hour to get to the hotel, drop our bags off and then get back to the
train station and Montreux is hilly, we decided to take a taxi, we stayed at Hotel Helvetie.
After dropping off the luggage we took our time to walk back to the
station, exploring as much of Montreux as we could and stopped for some pastries
for breakfast.
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| Montreux, Switzerland |
We found the station and platform with no problems, the
train arrived early so we had time to take photos of it, as it had some gold
carriages that made it very appealing to look at
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| Chocolate Train |
plus the interior was that of
the 1920's.
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| Chocolate Train Interior, Trevor sat at the seat on the left. |
The train circles the mountains behind Montreux giving
passengers a great view of Montreux
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| Overlooking Montreux from the Chocolate Train |
and then continues onto Gruyere where an
included tour of the Gruyere Cheese Factory starts. The tour is self
guided with hand held devices explaining the process in your language.
They had these cool smelly things around the tour so you can smell the
flowers and herbs that the dairy cows would smell when they eat the grass and
all different things like that.
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| Have a smell of that! |
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| Gruyere Cheese being made |
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| Gruyere Cheese maturing |
After the cheese factory we boarded a bus
to the village of Gruyere
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| Gruyere, Switzerland |
where we had around two hours to explore.
We spent nearly all the time at Gruyere Château which was both beautiful
and fascinating.
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Gruyere Chateau
|
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| Gruyere Chateau |
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| Wall and garden at Gruyere Chateau |
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| The interior building of the Gruyere Chateau |
Two hours later we were on the bus to Broc to visit the Cailler
Chocolate Factory. This is a must as you learn about the history of
chocolate making in Switzerland, see how the chocolate is made,
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| Cailler chocolate being made |
try
some chocolate straight off the assembly line and then enter a room where you
can eat as much chocolate as you like. Trust me; I made sure I got one of
each in, even though it made me feel so unwell.
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| Eat as much chocolate as you like! |
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| Yes I had one of each of these too |
To finish off the visit
to the factory there is a huge shop where you can buy as much chocolate you can
afford or carry.
On our return to Montreux we took photos of Jon Lord
from Deep Purple, because the song Smoke on the Water was written about a time when they played at the Casino in Montreux and it burnt down and the smoke lingered
over the lake.
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| Jon Lord, Deep Purple |
Plus we walked along the lakeside to Chillon Chateau to
take photos.
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Chillon Chateau, near Montreux
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