“One More Chocolate Factory Tour” in Broc and an unexpected visit to “Mt. Zion”
After a terrific (especially given our earlier experiences with over priced unhealthy breakfasts) breakfast of cheeses, eggs,
rolls, along with a local specialty of meringues and crème fraiche we took a longer walk around the chateau where we took our photo:
attracted the attention of some of the deer on the property,
and made our purchase of artisanal Gruyère cheese, a fruit-loaf bread and some local Gruyères digestif, before heading off to Broc for our chocolate tour.
Broc is visible from the Gruyères chateau.
Cailler, part of the Nestlé international conglomerate, has its factory in Broc.
Mark was intrigued by one of the images in the corridor that lead into the museum space.
After the formal tour area we were lead into a large room where every variety candy and chocolate was available for tasting.
And then to the big hall, where they were all available for purchase.
We went back to the outlet store where we had parked earlier to take a look without any purchases.
When we first looked into the Switzerland trip, we learned about the “Chocolate Train.” Had we done that, we would have driven to Montreaux, spent the day on an expensive train, and had limited time in each place. This may have been the train. It stops around the corner from the Cailler building.
Instead, we spent our night in Gruyères, and took our own time driving to Broc then drove down from the mountains to the southeastern tip of Lake Geneva or Lake Léman and drove through the very tony downtown area of Montreaux.
We were able to find a tiny road along the waterfront beside a park where we were able to take our photo.
Then one end of the lake to the other we drove along local roads, through (through Vevey, the location of Nestlé’s international headquarters) the Vaud wine country that slopes up steeply from the lake,
snapdragons growing wild out of the drainage holes in the retaining wall,
until we arrived at the canton’s capital: Lausanne. We returned to the highway and drove on to Geneva. Our friends live outside of Geneva, actually in France in the tiny village of Lathoy in a little town called Saint-Julien-en-Genevois.
A new highway leads from Geneva into the Rhône-Alpes. Before we knew it, we had passed through the border and sped along on a road that Gertrude did not know. We drove for many miles before we were able to turn around and then wend our way back along local roads in Gertrude’s repertoire. Along the way we came to a town that seems to consider itself the center of the world…
called Mont Sion.
This was reassuring to Mark, not because he thought he had arrived in Jerusalem, but because, when he was looking for possible hotels in the area he had noticed this town, and decided it was too far away from the city. That we were headed into it from farther away, meant that we were on the right track.
Then Debbie noticed that we were at the the hamlet of Santa Claus: “Le hameau du Père Noël”:
And then we learned that we were once more (and not for the last time this day!) on a spur of the route of Santiago de Compostela.
Otherwise, it seems that the town is known for an important tunnel recently completed in the area that we thankfully did not go through nor did we it.
We finally made our way into Saint-Julien-en-Genevois and asked for guidance at a local hotel. As it turned out we were no more that a couple of kilometers from our destination… even so, we were able to make a wrong turn at least one more time. And, yet, we arrived earlier than expected, so we parked the car and took a little walk in the neighboring cornfields only to see, once again the telltale sign of the route that we had seen so many other places in Spain and throughout Western Europe:
As we walked, a lovely girl dashed out through an opening in the hedges onto the path in front of us and ran to some nearby houses. We learned later, when she came home for dinner, that this is the daughter of our friend. We shared a delicious fondue dinner and talked late into the night.
