Gruyeres

Off we headed through twisty roads and scenic hillsides to Gruyeres, a medieval town known for its world-famous cheese.  On the drive it was interesting to cross a mountain pass and move from the German speaking part of Switzerland to the French. It was a night and day change. From essentially all German and no French to just the opposite. Even the tourists changed. Gone were the German license plates and appearing were the ones from France and Belgium. You get the sense that many tourists feel more comfortable in the regions where their language is spoken – which we can appreciate.

The clincher was the shower in the hotel at Gruyeres. When we first visited France in 1997 we laughed at how every hotel had a different, often very challenging, system for turning on the shower. The three primary controls – to turn on the water, to manage the temperature, and to turn on the shower head – were always there but it typically required a ton of trial and error to find them all. This is exactly what we encountered in Gruyeres. Welcome back to the French speaking part of the world and all of the idiosyncrasies that come with it!

Very cool to stay overnight in Gruyeres and finally have the long-awaited cheese fondue for dinner. We were awoken by cathedral bells in the morning at 6:30.  We always hear a chime or two in every city we have visited but not for this long.  I guess you never need a watch in these small towns.

We had another delicious breakfast with the addition of merengue cookies and a thick, slightly sweet cream which is popular in this town.  We would have liked to stay in this town to visit the museum, chocolate factory and cheese factory, but given the warm weather and rain in the forecast decided to press on to France where the kids could go swimming.