The Month of Eight Countries: Switzerland

This is the sixth story in a mini-series called The Month of Eight Countries, which is about the countries Bruno and I are visiting this month as part of our 4,000km overland transit between Turkey and France. The previous instalments of the series were on Bulgaria, Serbia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia and Slovenia, and Italy.

We weren’t supposed to be in Switzerland. It wasn’t part of our original travel plan, nor did it conform to the rules of our transit (which were to choose a direct route, cross as few borders as possible, and take no detours). Switzerland defied all of those rules – and yet, here we were driving up Col de Simplon into the Swiss Alps.

In my post on Croatia and Slovenia, I lamented the mass tourism and the expensive campsites of the region. Despite enjoying Croatia’s Pitvice Lakes National Park and Slovenia’s Škocjan Caves, Bruno and I zoomed through the two countries faster than expected and so were ahead of schedule in our overland transit to France.

What did we decide to do with those extra few days? You guessed it – go to Switzerland!

I’d been to Switzerland before. In fact, this would be my fourth visit – my first three involved an unexpected layover in Zurich, a last-minute girls’ trip to Verbier, Lausanne, and Geneva, and a day trip last year to Château Chillon with my family and Bruno’s. This trip would be much like the last three – unexpected and brief. My four visits to Switzerland amount to no more than week total in this beautiful country.

And Switzerland is indeed beautiful. Over the course of our fifty-five hours in Switzerland, I would snap more pictures from the passenger seat of the car than in our entire transit from Turkey thus far. I would repeatedly force Bruno to pull over so that I could take in the panoramas of snow-capped mountains, hillside vineyards, waterfalls and lakes, and fertile green farmland. I would exclaim single-syllabic appreciations so often that one not looking out from our vehicle window might think I was being melodramatic.

Switzerland may not have the same mesmerizing village charm as does Italy, but its scenery more than makes up for it.

We weren’t in Switzerland for its village charm or its beauty, though. We were here in order to visit Bruno’s brother and family, who live on the French and Swiss border near Geneva. Driving through Switzerland wasn’t the most direct way to reach our family, but we wanted to be on the safe side. It’s been eleven years since Bruno drove Totoyaya through France, and fifteen since his vehicle has complied to French road regulations. Getting pulled over by French police officers could lead to anything from a fine to confiscation of the vehicle, so we wanted to limit the risk by driving as little in France as possible.

We drove up high into the Swiss Alps, where the wind was brisk and strong. We picnicked on the side of the road, facing a waterfall of melted snow. We drove to Lac Lémont, snowy mountains reflected in its clear water. We drove past Montreux and Château Chillon and reminisced about our visit here last fall. And then we drove back up into the mountains, up narrow village roads and past wooden A-frame houses to the region of Gruyère.

We were making yet another detour. This one was also for a perfectly good reason – it would be my birthday the next day and there was something I was dying to visit. Birthdays are good reasons for detours, don’t you think?

And so, the morning of my birthday, we awoke in a large parking lot in Moléson sur Gruyère. We were used to parking lots by now after our experiences in Croatia and Italy, and preferred them to the similarly expensive and jam-packed Swiss campsites. The evening before, we’d clambered up the hill from the parking lot to the village to visit a fromagerie, an artisanal cheese shop that produced the gruyere cheese that the region is famous for.

But on this birthday morning, it wasn’t cheese I had in mind – it was chocolate. That thing I was dying to visit was La Maison Cailler, Switzerland’s most famous chocolate factory.

To build up our appetites, Bruno and I stopped in Gruyère, the medieval village the region is named after. The steeple of Gruyère’s church and the towers of its massive castle can be seen from miles away because the fortified town is set on top of a hill. We wandered down its main street, past its shops and restaurants advertising fraises et crème de gruyère, fondue gruyère, and raclette de gruyère (too bad we were saving room for chocolate). We admired the church and castle from outside. We walked around the outer wall, gazing at the surrounding rolling pastures (the same pastures that feed Swiss cows so well, thus making Swiss dairy products arguably the most delicious in the world).

And then, we drove to La Maison Cailler!

Guided tours depart every few minutes. Armed with a personal headset, you’re steered through a series of rooms that use multimedia to explain the history of Swiss chocolate, from the cacao bean in Mayan times to the liquid chocolate craze in medieval Europe and the 19^th century creation of solid chocolate in Switzerland by Francois-Louis Cailler and Henri Nestle.

After the history lesson, another room displays and discusses the origins of the various ingredients that go into Cailler chocolate, from cacao beans to vanilla, milk to hazelnuts. Great effort here is shown to demonstrate that Cailler sources all its ingredients responsibly and that all its employees, from farmers to industrial line managers, are happy.

Next, you witness the production of Cailler’s most famous chocolate, les branches. First, tubes of hazelnut praline are squeezed onto the line and mechanically cut into equal lengths. Then, liquid chocolate with hazelnut chunks is doused over the praline, and the double-layered pieces are sent into a cooling vessel. When they emerge, a mechanical hand photographs each of the pieces and quickly removes each piece that conforms to the required length. The very few that miss the cut continue on the line and are left behind. Ninety branches per minute are made at La Maison Cailler.

The chocolate tour saves the best for last: the taste test! This is the moment I’d been waiting – and saving my appetite – for. Eight different types of Cailler chocolate are displayed in a line, starting with a white chocolate, offering six varieties of milk chocolate (Switzerland’s favorite), and ending with two dark chocolates. You can sample as many chocolates as you’d like. I ate thirteen pieces before feeling mildly ill. I’d expected to be able to do more, but Cailler chocolate is deliciously rich. As I write this blog post, I wish I could time-travel back to my birthday and eat thirteen more.

Bellies full of creamy Swiss chocolate, it was time to head to the other side of Lac Lémont, to France, and to family. On the way, we stopped for a birthday picnic lunch on the edge of the lake, Switzerland’s UNESCO-protected hillside vineyards reaching toward the afternoon sun in perfect alignment. Mont Blanc, the tallest mountain in the Alps, emerged from behind the clouds to wish me a happy birthday. My special day wasn’t over yet, but our time in Switzerland was.

Switzerland has firmly taken its place as the country I explore in tiny snippets. It’s well-suited to be, as its regions and experiences are like beautiful postcards that leave me wanting more. I’m already looking forward to my next quick-trip to Switzerland, especially if cheese, chocolate, and mountains are involved. They are sure to be.