Broc and Murten

The girls love cheese. We checked out this morning as they were making cheese. Did I mention the girls love cheese?  Yes, they really do like cheese, a lot.  There were a few flies buzzing around the big vat and that triggered Riley's gross reflex. Seeing as how this operation is in our building might explain why we seemed to have a minor plague of flies in our room. Before Patti and I went out last night, I told the girls they could split a Swiss Franc (money not sausage) if they rid us of them.  They were unable too do so, but they will still get the Franc for trying.

We left our bags at the reception and started our hike on the 'Cheese and Chocolate Trial' as it is referred to. This would take us on an hour hike through some nice forested areas, along a river, though some pastureland, through the town of Broc and finally to the Chocolate Fabrique.  At the Chocolate Factory we were going to take a tour then eat too much sweeties. 

We passed through a covered bridge along the way and I was able to capture this shot from a window. 

Every few minutes some fully kitted mountain bike racer type on his sweet carbon fiber super bike would whiz by. This was reminding me that I have to compete in a race, the first for me in 10 years, exactly a month after I get back.  I am now a week into my month of detraining and I am really getting good at it. This trip I am going with my old standby, the TRX, and basically quadrupling the quantity of training that I do with it a week.  How is that possible you might ask?  Because I do it very little in the first place :-).  This morning I was able to get a workout in while the kids were still in bed. Keep that in mind for later in my day. 

Further into the walk there were photo ops of the hilltop burg we stayed in.

Maison Cailler, paradise found for the Huth girls.  After an hour of nervous excitement we finally began our decent into this chocolate town. Yes, people actually live here and the girls immediately requested a change of address.  

The tour was fine as far as content goes, the right amount of information for adults with some entertainment value for the kids. Near the end there was an interactive area where they had a variety of ingredients that you could handle and smell, etc. I was looking at the kids in the room thinking 'I wonder if any of them have eaten this stuff?  How gross!  How many hands have run through these nuts?'  Then I see Riley...eating the nuts. 

On the demonstration line there was a robot picker that would grab each candy one at a time from the four rows and set them into a new single row for wrapping. It was pretty slick.  It had a different selection order each time. The best I could tell is that it would take them based on the next chocolate that was leading down the conveyor. Very cool. Very fast. Puts Laverne and Shirley way out of business. 

Finally we hit the Tasting Room. The crowds had not yet come to the factory for the day so we were unencumbered by any other chocolate fiends and had the place to ourselves for just a little bit. That was very dangerous and a few of us paid for our inhibition. Tara finally gave up in defeat by announcing "I just can't eat anymore."  Patti only ate 3 pieces, because she is only supposed to have 0.  Riley, she moderated well.  Me, I was a wreck. I ate about 20 pieces of Chocolate. 

Remember the workout?  How about the hike, remember that?  At Tasting Room time minus zero I had been up for 5 hours, been pretty active and had not eaten anything but half of a stale Lara Bar. Welcome to chocolate brunch. I did not eat again for another 6 hours, all jacked up on chocloate.  My training will soon be complete. 

After completing our engorgement it was time to return from whence we came via another hour long trial hike.  Before we arrived at the factory the girls were lobbying hard to take a bus back, but now the chocolate has dulled their minds. About a quarter way into the return hike the chatter began about our favorite flavors. Now leave it to Riley to have squirreled away a handful of tasties for us to re-immerse ourselves once again.

We grabbed our bags, hiked down from town and hopped on the train towards our next destination.  As we moved by train through the Swiss countryside we transitioned away from a primarily French speaking part of Switzerland to one of primarily German tongue.  Three languages in 2 days is making for some interesting pre-speech processing. Even though I have the vocabulary of a 2 year old I still need to think about what the dominant language and the right phrase is before it comes out. 

I really enjoy looking out the window from moving platforms. Not always the best idea when I am the driver, but perfect when on these trains. Always plenty to see and think about.  It is hard to miss the church building that anchors the main squares in these Swiss cities. The quantity and size of the Catholic and Protestant church buildings of this part of Europe are a contrast to those that we saw in the Greek Orthodox start to our trip. In one little Greek town we counted 4 church buildings that ranged from small to tiny that were spread a distance that would fit into a quarter of a football field.  In Switzerland, a single church building seems to dominate any given area and if there were another building close by it would be an alternate of Catholic or Protestant.  

We arrived in Murten and stood for a few minutes in front of the station as we usually always do trying to get our bearings so as not to waste any steps hauling our junk in the wrong direction. Murten is a walled city which is considerably larger then Gruyeres. 

We climbed up on the wall and saw the sights from there. 

Everywhere in these old towns there was a water source and a big catch basin. This one right outside our flat had a little flower flair to it. 

Today was a national holiday in Switzerland and as such the food market was closed and with it the picnic lunch stategy that we used the night before. So,  we went back to the train station and had a nice tasting, but comparatively expensive dinner.  Patti was able to simply get the chicken and cheese that would have gone into a sandwich, since she cannot eat the bread, but even that still cost US$8.50.   Later we were able to borrow some butter and cook up some of the rice pasta that Patti imported with us. We also toasted the remaining bread from last night and made some garlic bread less the garlic. 

We tucked in early and enjoyed these really nice accomodations and also the first TV, just for a few minutes, since we left via the iMac that was in the room.

Images in 2015 Broc and Murten.