Gruyere, Switzerland
 

Hello! I will be going to Gruyere for a few days later this month, and I haven't been able to find much specifically on the region in any previous posts. I was wondering if anyone has been before and has any advice as to where to eat and stay, and if there are any activities we absolutely must do! For now we are going off of the Gruyeres tourism website, which is actually very nice compared to most. Also, we will be going to the region from Bern, and leaving through Lausanne - is it best to go by train or bus or ? Thanks!!

For all your transport needs in Switzerland use the railways website, http://www.cff.ch. It will include all relevant types of transport, rail, but also buses, boats, mountain railways, if they're needed.
Bern to Gruyères is nice, but I wouldn't do anything too fancy (though if you have time, Fribourg is very attractive). From Gruyères to Lausanne, go the long way round using the MOB which takes you through the mountains to Montreux (on the cff website just put via Montreux to get a schedule for that itinerary).
Gruyères is a bit kitsch but does it rather well. Go to the cheese factory at the bottom of hill by the station. Plenty of restaurants in the village which is very touristy.

I must say that for someone named "bread&cheese," Gruyeres seems to be an apropos destination! I might've thought you lived there already.

There's also a chocolate factory in nearby Broc that offers tours of the factory. At the end of the tour there's a sample tasting which, if I remember correctly, was "all you can eat." Of course it's pretty rich, so "all you can eat" turns out to be not that much, really. But it's sort of a fantasy dream for many chocolate lovers, so maybe worth the drive over.

definitely worth a stop at Broc for the chocolate factory (although you don't really see any production).

In Gruyere, you'll want to see 2 cheese factories: the modern "demonstration" factory in town, and the traditional factory in the nearby mountain hamlet.

Gruyere town is nice as well. Try to visit in the evening after the tourist hordes are gone.

So glad I found this thread! We are arriving into GVA at 4:30pm and leaving out of ZRH at 4:30pm the next day. I'm a Gruyere cheese addict, and my wife is a chocoholic, so visiting Gruyeres and surrounding area was just a given.

I want to see the cheese making demo, and my wife would love to do the factory tour. We'll have a rental car.

How much time should I allot to visiting the Gruyere region to achieve our goals? Should we spend the night in Gruyere, given our timing? The rest of the time we'll be using to visit places like Lausanne, Vevey, Zurich, but those are secondary.

As a bonus... anywhere we can go to pet a cow and take a picture?

That's a lot for only a few hours. I might spend the night in Vevey or Montrose and then head out to Guyere in the morning. I didn't spend a lot of time in Lausanne so I can comment. I loved Vevey and Montrose. You can take a cog train up the mountain at either Vevey or Montrose (I don't remember which). The views are spectacular.

I assume you'll want to turn the rental car in around 3, so there isn't a lot of time to see too much, but then you'll have an idea where you want to spend more time when you return.

You're not going to be able to do much other than see Gruyère itself and the Cailler chocolate factory in Broc in the time available. I would suggest spending the night in Montreux or in the Gruyère, Broc area. You will need to leave the area at 12 to 12:30 at the latest to get to Zurich in time.

Gruyère is pretty tiny. It's basically just the castle. It's pretty nice though. What time of the year are you going to be visiting? If you're visiting in the next couple of weeks you should be fine, and it will be light out into the evening. Though, by the time you get out of the airport and to Gruyère, it'll probably be close to 7PM.

Traffic can get bad between Bern and Zürich, so you'll want to heed catandmouse's advice and get an early start to Zürich if you stay in Montreux. Or you could go have a quick look at Gruyère on your way to Zürich and spend the night in either Zürich or Luzern.

You don't have a lot of time, but you'll still manage to see some nice countryside. It's a nice place here in Switzerland. :)

The cheese factory opens at 9AM and the chocolate factory at 10AM. So for sure I'd do it that order. If you wanna see Gruyère the castel, you should may be go there before visiting the cheese factory (it's a 1 minute drive away from there).

Now depending of what you want to see the evening before....

- if a city: montreux or vevey and spend a night nearby in le mirador. It's expensive but really nice. I think there should be a discount voucher somewhere on the web.

- otherwise if in the mountains, you could go up the moléson, have a fondue up there and sleep there (something basic) on the way down with the cablecar for example. In this case you'll probably get nice pictures of cows depending which season you're going to be there.

In both cases, you're about 30 min from the cheese factory away.

Great info, thanks everyone. I ended up booking an Airbnb in Bulle so that we'll be right there where we want to be when we wake up. We may stop in Vevey for dinner on the way, unless someone has a recommendation on their favorite restaurant serving moitie-moitie fondue, anywhere on the path from GVA to Bulle and surrounding area.

Bonus points for a place meringues/double cream... never had and very interested.

<drool....>

I would bet your Airbnb host could probably arrange a fondue pot. The moite-moitie fondue mix you can get from Coop, Denner, or Migros is actually pretty good. It's vacuum sealed as well, so you might be able to take some home, depending on the rules there. This would probably be about as good as going out. Then you'll be able to have a couple glasses of wine with dinner if you desire.

You can find a shop in Gruyère that sells meringues. I can't remember if they do ice cream as well.

Do not leave Gruyère without having their signature dessert, meringues and creme. I've traveled back there 3 or 4 times just for that. We drive.

In Lausanne, it would be nice if you were there on a Wednesday or Saturday, their market days and a terrific market it is. There's a wonderful little chocolate store, Blondel, on rue de bourg. I learned about this shop from another FTer and it is excellent chocolate.

Bobette

If you buy it from the store, and not a restaurant, you must ask for the triple creme to go with it. It's good from that store but better in restaurants. The restaurant I like best is on the right hand side as you go up the hill sort of in the middle of the hill.

Bobette

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If you wanna enjoy a moitié-moitié (or pure vacherin :p) and the meringue double crême up in the mountains near les paccots on your way to gruyères, this one is a good bet until sept/oct (before the snow makes it impossible to reach by car).

NB: since it's more known by locals, they may not speak english (at all !) quite well.

I'll have to keep this in mind and refer back to this thread next time I'm there. BTW, IceTrojan, you should be able to pet that cow you're hoping for because there have always been cows very close to the upper parking lot right outside the entrance to the town.

Bobette

By the way, if you're in Gruyere at this time of the year, you have to try the "moutarde de bénichon". It's something made only in the region of Fribourg/Gruyère and only sold/eaten in september and october.

None of the americans I know did like it on the first try. It's actually quite an uncommun taste. But be aware, once you tried a few times, you'll spread it on your bread like nutella :p.

Nice suggestions, Artemio, I have to try some of them! Le Vuipay looks good... I haven't quite worked out where it is exactly yet, but I have a feeling I walked past it on one of my hikes a couple of years back maybe stopping there for a coffee. Les Paccots is a lovely area, unknown to tourists, a real secret gem.

Today I was up in Langenthal sweating away accompanying a competition there (surprisingly pleasant town with a theater which has a plaque outside saying that Mozart had passed by in 17 something) and I fancied stopping in Chatel St. Denis for a fondue on the way back ( there's a great fondue place there, can't remember the name) but I was too tired after getting up at 5 this morning.

While I've enjoyed my time in Gruyere, it's hard to imagine vacationing in the Swiss Alps these days: the exchange rate is crushing compared to, say, the French Alps. Indeed, I'm guessing the Swiss tourism industry is suffering mightily. It used to be that only Americans couldn't afford their country; now it's their fellow Europeans, too. :)

Yes, and the odd thing is they haven't dropped their prices yet. Some items in the COOP or Migros are a few centimes cheaper, but this is just lip service. Tonight, after a concert, we were 5 to eat in the Spaghetti Factory in the old town in Geneva, and the bill came to CHF200 including wine. Needless to say, I could have knocked together the salad that I had for less than 2 francs at home. Even up in a Gasthaus at the bottom of a cliff in Goppenstein, where the upper Lötschberg Tunnel comes out, the prices were stratospheric.

Such great information, Artemio and Concerto. You lucky dogs living in such a terrific area.

Bobette

As a world traveler and int'l finance guy for the past 30 years, I've noticed one constant: whenever an exchange rate becomes ridiculous, it will eventually correct. The problem is that it can take awhile. Sometimes even a decade. Since it's hard to have an enjoyable vacation when everything seems mega-expensive, it's best to avoid (or at least limit one's time in) the countries that are too expensive.

Switzerland is a special case because it's USUALLY too expensive to visit. This has gone on for decades. For this reason, I've generally "nipped in" to Switzerland and then left for the Euro zone. But that was when the Euro was overvalued, too. Now the disparity is so great that I don't think I'd "nip."

BTW, the Swiss themselves don't seem to be hurting too much according to this data. While the prices of everything a tourist would likely buy are stratospheric, it would seem that high wages give the Swiss themselves decent buying power. Beats me. It sure must be nice to vacation abroad if you're Swiss right now. :)

http://www.numbeo.com/cost-of-living...ry=Switzerland

Really interesting link, that. My Euro zone friends are always shocked how much a bag of groceries costs. An average shopping for a couple of days, for me, usually sets me back about CHF50-60. Most pay a lot more. In Germany I wouldn't pay more than EUR25-35 for the same. I sometimes quite a bit annoyed with restaurant and café owners about the stupid prices they are charging.

Frankly, I think the place deserves boycotting until things stabilise a bit. But you'll never get that East European nouveau riche crowd that is now swarming about everywhere boycotting the place, they simply do not care one jot about it.

Oddly, I think things are finally correcting themselves, with the Euro getting a bit stronger these past days. It will be better for everybody if it continues.

Well, something will have to give eventually. I'm curious what happens in Geneva, which is pretty much surrounded by France. Like who would buy anything in Switzerland? If I could travel 3 miles and buy things for half-price, I'd be travelling those 3 miles quite often. :)

I also wonder about the Swiss themselves boycotting their country. Like the Australians frequently travel thousands of miles to places like Bali to vacation because Australia tourist activities are overpriced. The Swiss would only have to travel like 50 miles, and could even speak their native language(s). Why would a Swiss vacation in Switzerland at current prices?