Swiss Grand Circle - 08. Cheesy Visit to Gruyeres

From our homebase on Lake Geneva we took a day’s excursion to the cheese capital of Switzerland, a picturesque medieval town carrying the distinguished name of Gruyères, with an extra “s” at the end but still synonymous with one of the world's most famous cheeses.


Despite all its photogenic charms and promises of gastronomic delights, Gruyères wasn’t part of our original 16-day itinerary of Switzerland until some spontaneous rescheduling gave us an extra day in the Lake Geneva area. Lausanne and Geneva were among our day-trip options, but a friend of my wife’s who once worked in Geneva highly recommended Gruyères.


Saddled at an elevation of 800m among the Pre-Alps of western Switzerland, the district of Gruyère fits everyone’s image of idyllic Swiss pastures with rolling green hills intermittently speckled with herds of dairy cattle, occasionally black-and-white Holsteins but mostly the native Swiss breed in light brown. Gruyère cheese is their key assignment of course, widely featured in restaurants across the nation in everything from älplermagronen to fondues to veal cordon bleu.


For rail travelers the journey to Gruyères is a treat on the GoldenPass panorama train -- completely free for holders of the Swiss Travel Pass -- negotiating a scrupulously engineered route of switchbacks and 100-year-old tunnels on the narrow-guage Montreux Oberland Bernois Railway. Foregoing the luxury drinks we got off early at tiny Montbovon where we transferred to a local train for the final 20 minutes of our 90 minute journey.


Built next to the train station is the unmissable La Maison du Gruyère, a demonstration cheese factory set up by the local cheesemaker’s association to showcase their art to the hundreds of daily visitors -- and produce 7,000 wheels of prized Gruyère AOP cheese per year in the process.


Twice a day fresh milk delivered by local farmers -- within a radius of 20 km to qualify for Gruyère AOP -- is heated in a large metal vat, curdled with the addition of rennet before being sliced into fine pieces by the rotating blades. Late morning would be an ideal time to visit as several of these steps from two different batches are observable at the same time.


The miniature curds are strained, placed into circular casts and mechanically pressed to remove most of the remaining moisture. A brining process ensues before the crudely shaped wheel is removed from the cast to enter its months-long curing process.


A blackboard notes the timing of each step for the records. 48 wheels would be produced each day during peak production season, and ripened for 3 to 10 month depending on the intensity of flavour desired. That said, even at its sharpest Gruyère is still versatile and relatively inoffensive to most tastebuds, contributing to its worldwide popularity.


Our complimentary visit, courtesy of the Swiss Travel Pass, came also with free souvenirs of snack-sized Gruyère AOP, perfect as additions to our picnic lunch on a roadside bench before a short 20-minute climb to the citadel at the hilltop.


Though an arched gate the visitor enters a completely fortified town dating from the Middle Ages, with rustic three-storey houses lining the inside of the ramparts and encircling an expansive cobbled square, still fitted with functioning water fountains for locals and thirsty hikers alike.


At the town’s highest point rests the 800-year-old castle, overlooking the Saane valley below and the lush green pastures essential for the production of the world famous cheese, now proudly featured in every restaurant in town in various forms from raclette to gelato.


When the Counts of Gruyères erected their principal stronghold here back in the 13th century, the complex was even heavier fortified with more battlements, military barracks and armoury -- far more austere than the enchanting palace that welcomes today’s visitors.


Lavish dining halls, Flemish tapestries and a roomful of hunting trophies all convey different stories from the castle’s succession of owners over eight centuries, the longest standing being the Canton of Fribourg which reacquired the castle in the 1930s and painstakingly restored it into a legitimate tourist draw for a canton of relatively few visitors compared with the neighbouring powerhouse of Bern.


Viewable through the dining hall’s medieval stained glass is a meticulously maintained French landscape garden hidden at the rear of the castle. Compared with Château de Chillon which we visited the previous day, Gruyères’ castle is slightly smaller and much quieter with few visitors, but no less entertaining.


Apart from the main castle, Gruyères also features a couple of neat museums including one housed inside the small Saint-Germain castle and dedicated to the surrealist work of H.R. Giger, best known for his bio-mechanical models in the Aliens series. As nightmarish or as dreamy the artwork may appear to the beholder, the creativity in the décor at the Giger-themed café next door is indisputable.


On our way back we shared our train cabin with three train aficionados from the U.K. who specifically came to see the 100-year-old rail engineering on the Montreux Oberland Bernois route. Even for those less passionate about rail or even cheese, Gruyères still makes a great day-trip from Bern or from Lake Geneva with its medieval townscape and a variety of museums and cheese factory. This may sound like a no-brainer, but taking advices from locals -- or at least someone who once lived in the area in the case of my wife’s friend -- seldom turns out wrong.

Swiss Grand Circle - 07. Hiking the Lavaux Vineyards

This was one of our three favourite easy hikes in Switzerland, relatively unknown but on par in my mind with the famous Männlichen-Kleine Scheidegg hike below the mighty Jungfrau. Instead of alpine plateaus we have a sunny lakeside riviera, sweeping views of 800-year-old vineyards and charming little wineries along the route, all designated as a UNESCO World Heritage Site and connected by a network of stroller-friendly paved paths. You can hardly ask for a better hike for the entire family.


Saddled halfway between Lausanne and Montreux on the most picturesque stretch of Lake Geneva, the wine region of Lavaux is a feast for the eyes as well as the palate with seemingly endless rows of its native chasselas grapes converted into extraordinarily full-bodied whites with honey-like notes. Combining this afternoon hike with a morning visit to Château de Chillon, coupled with a pleasure cruise on the lake, was our idea of a perfect day-trip in the canton of Vaud.


Cursed -- and blessed -- with precariously steep slopes too hazardous for herding cattle like most of Switzerland, the landscape of Lavaux challenged its medieval settlers to build stone terraces for grapes. As a wine region it is relatively unknown outside of Switzerland, as most of the annually production is consumed domestically and seldom gets the chance to further its reputation overseas.


Harvest is purely by hand as it has been for centuries, assisted only by simple grape trains -- wobbly plastic crates guided by flimsy monorails really -- snaking through the precipitous terraces and transporting the crop to the wine press. The same system is used in Cinque Terre, though Lavaux has remained comparatively anonymous to international tourists.


This was all part of a jam-packed day starting with an unexpected, magnificent view of the Matterhorn at sunrise followed by a scenic 2.5 hour train ride from the heart of the Alps to the rolling hills of Lake Geneva. At the end we would check into our rental apartment in the bedroom community of Clarens just minutes from Montreux, leaving just 7 hours to cover the castle, the cruise and the hike.


One of the conveniences of train travel in Switzerland is the wide availability of luggage lockers, even at mid-sized stations like Montreux. Free of heavy luggages our first stop was the inimitable Château de Chillon, one of Switzerland's most recognizable monuments and the most popular attraction on Lake Geneva judging by the number of tour buses in the parking lot.


Perched on a small natural island on the northeastern shore of Lake Geneva, Chillon has guarded for centuries this narrow passage on the riviera linking Burgundy towards Northern Italy. The castle has been documented for over a thousand years, though the current rendition dates mostly from the Late Middle Ages.


Aside from its postcard illusion of being afloat on the lake, Chillon is best known among English-speakers for its Gothic dungeon that inspired Lord Byron’s The Prisoner of Chillon, with Byron’s own graffiti on the dungeon wall as proof of his visit. In reality though the dungeon was used more for storage besides its storied past as jail cells.


Two hours were barely enough to tour this deceptively large castle with various watchtowers, ramparts and grand halls befitting the Dukes of Savoy, capped by magnificent 14th century frescoes in the Camera Domini. Entrance was free as usual with the Swiss Travel Pass.


And if you’re holding a Swiss Travel Pass, one of the best kept secrets is the boat pier next to Château de Chillon where you can hop on a 120-year-old paddle wheeler that takes you straight to Cully or Rivaz -- just a couple times a day so you need to time it right -- where the Lavaux vineyard hike starts.


Powered now by 21st century steam engines, these Belle Epoque paddle wheelers hug the Vaudois Riviera starting from Montreux, past the pictured giant Fork near Vevey to Lausanne on a 2 hour journey, with connections all the way to Geneva if you're inclined to stay for another 3 hours, all covered under the Swiss Travel Pass.


While enjoying our picnic lunch onboard we gained a distant panorama of our hiking route, cutting diagonally across the layers of medieval stone terraces and passing underneath the occasional hilltop castle perched above their old domains. Once we passed the eye-catching Château de Glérolles near our eventual finish line at Rivaz, we knew we’re getting close to our stop.


Our boat arrived after 75 minutes at the Cully pier where we started our planned hike, itself the scenic middle section of a 11.7 km official hiking trail stretching from Lutry to Saint-Saphorin. Our part was no longer than 5 km, though it would take a good two hours with constant photo stops along the way.


From the sleepy town of Cully the trail began with a gentle but sustained uphill climb on narrow paved roads between shoulder-height stone hedges that separated the old vineyard domains. At times the odd car would pass by, plus the occasional hiker coming in the opposite direction.


After 30 minutes we gained enough elevation to enter the classic Lavaux landscape refined by centuries of viticulture, dotted with historic vigneron mansions overlooking their irregular swaths of south-facing, sun-drenched terraces stretching down to the lakeshore.


Midway through the hike passed through the vintner settlement of Epesses amid its sea of Chasselas, synonymous with Swiss whites yet rarely seen in neighbouring France beyond these lake shores. Just an hour’s drive to the south is the French wine region of Savoie where varietals such as Roussette dominate.


In another three weeks the annual harvest would begin with additional help from local volunteers, their sweat and labour rewarded not in money but in delicious bottles from the vignerons. The old cogwheel monorail would spring into action once again, though more affluent domains would also utilize helicopters to transport the crates full of harvested grapes.


It was the perfect afternoon, a comfortable 23 degrees in the sun with skies so clear that Mont Blanc itself, the highest peak of the Alps, appeared in the backdrop behind Lake Geneva. And this was after viewing the Matterhorn at sunrise for two of Europe’s most famous peaks within 10 hours.

This was by far my most memorable day in our 16-day tour of Switzerland.


90 minutes into the hike and we reached the crucial fork with two options -- uphill to Chexbres-Village to catch the S7 train on the spur line, or downhill to Rivaz to catch the S2 train on the mainline by the lake, returning us to Montreux in either case. The Rivaz option won for no other reason than a smoother connection with the next available train.


Reunited with our heavy backpacks we quickly checked into our Airbnb at Clarens, a calm, multi-ethnic suburb a 5 minute bus or train ride away from Montreux. Our cheapest rental apartment in Switzerland did come with the quirky feature of a hideaway bed that dropped down from the ceiling like an elevator, but it was a minor obstacle compared with the added convenience of two major supermarkets -- including a much-appreciated Denner with its cutthroat pricing.


For dinner we picked up a bottle of local chasselas from the Lavaux vineyards that we hiked though earlier, complementing our supermarket dinner of a cream of white asparagus, shrimp salad and Migros rotisserie chicken. For its cheap price of CHF 7.15 -- courtesy of a sale at Denner -- this was a superb white with delightful mineral notes and lower-than-usual alcohol content.


Our favourite memory at this apartment was its partial view of Lake Geneva from the dining table, pictured here at breakfast time with some buttery pastries from the nearby Pâtisserie Girardin (see map) and the Heidi brand alpine milk to which we were now addicted.


Terrasses de Lavaux and Château de Chillon were far from the only day-tripping options with Montreux as a homebase. Along the northern arc of Lake Geneva we could have stayed longer and visited the Olympic Museum at Lausanne, Nestle’s Alimentarium and biweekly open-air market at Vevey, even metropolitan Geneva at just 60 minutes away by train.

But we picked none of the above. On the second day of our stay in Montreux we crossed over to the canton of Fribourg for another unmistakably Swiss destination ...

Swiss Grand Circle - 06. Zermatt and the Matterhorn

As unmistakably Swiss as Toblerone, the colossal, glistening Matterhorn loomed over the village of Zermatt at sunrise on our very last morning in town, emerging at last after two days of vanishing into dense clouds.


Here I was standing at Zermatt’s unofficial but well-known viewing platform (GPS Coordinate: N 46°1'32.0664" E 7°45'21.8556", see map), beside a family of three arriving the night prior and blessed with the good fortune of waking up to one of nature’s grand spectacles. As they blissfully discussed plans of riding the Gornergratbahn to the plateau for an even better view, I had to restrain myself from tempering their enthusiasm.

We made that same plan ourselves on the day we arrived, and did not see the Matterhorn for the next 44 hours.


Apart from that glorious morning, THIS was our view of the Matterhorn for our entire stay in case you’re wondering about my cynicism, or at least pragmatism. And this was in the month of September when the climate is statistically sunniest.


As is the case for two million annual visitors to Zermatt, the Matterhorn was our sole reason for dedicating two nights to this far-flung village in our 16-day Grand Circle of Switzerland. Years of living in Western Canada has taught us the unpredictability of mountain weather, and we even shifted our itinerary, mid-journey, according to the forecast in hope of maximizing our chance of seeing this iconic Swiss symbol.


Rather than arriving in the late afternoon according to our original plan, we squeezed a half-day out of our itinerary to arrive by lunchtime at stylish Zermatt, Switzerland’s quintessential winter resort with its streets full of Mammut expedition gear and Tag-Heuer watches, and a complete ban on combustion engines since the early 2010s -- a world-wide first among winter resorts -- to safeguard its crisp mountain air.


Dropping off our heavy backpacks at the rental apartment, we quickly picked up our picnic supplies of prosciutto and salad from the neighbourhood Migros before hopping onto the 120-year-old Gornergratbahn, a 45 minute ride up a steep cogwheel rail to the highest open-air train station in Europe at 3100 m. At CHF 100 (CAD$140) for two even at the half-price offered to Swiss Travel Pass holders, this wasn’t a cheap bet.


Our hopes were high. Our fair-weather plan was to alight at Rotenboden and hike at minimal effort to nearby Riffelsee for a picture-perfect reflection of the Matterhorn on a glassy alpine lake. But as our train made its way towards Rotenboden through a minor hailstorm, we just knew this wasn’t our day.


On a good day this observatory would present a fantastic panorama of a dozen 4000m peaks. On this day it was nothing but clouds and the occasional dusting of snow.

And this was forecasted to be our only partially-sunny day in town, as the weather was predicted to take a turn for the worse on our second day.

We didn’t give up. After more than an hour of stubborn wait in the freezing cold, we retreated to the warmth of Kulmhotel for a light meal of gulasch before venturing out for another hour. The fog cleared enough for an unobstructed view of the Gorner Glacier towards the ancient trade route of Theodul Pass, but the Matterhorn remained elusive.

That’s okay. We still had hope for the next day, no matter how daunting the weather forecast seemed.


It was nearly sunset when we made it back to our apartment, a sizeable bachelor suite with a spacious dining area and a full kitchen equipped with a dish washer and an oven to warm up our bread and rotisserie chicken. We found Haus Theodul highly recommendable for its amenities -- laundry, ski room and all -- at a reasonable price, within a 5 minute walk from the train station.


Our usual Migros supermarket dinner of shrimp appetizer and green salad was complemented on this day by a rotisserie chicken from the immensely popular Wilde Hilde (see map), a little barbecue joint that has reached near-legendary status among international tourists. At CHF 17 a chicken I would have preferred Migros’ version at two-thirds the price, especially since anything would have tasted amazing while I slowly savoured a half-bottle of Italian Amarone picked up at the wine store across Migros. And don’t even tell me that Amarone doesn’t go with white meat.


Day two. Despite pessimistic forecasts from Meteo Swiss, we had little choice but to maximize our chances with one more trip up the mountain on our second and final day in town. We have learned how much colder the mountaintop was compared with a relatively mild 10 degrees at the village, and we purposely stuffed ourselves with the local protein-and-fat diet of Walliser Trockenspeck, Trockenfleisch and Rohschinken, plus a grilled wurst, cheese and yogurt for a heavy breakfast.


On our way to the cable car station we walked by the Kirchbrücke, well-known locally for its unobstructed view of the Matterhorn on sunnier days, with no luck on this rainy morning. But Meteo Swiss did forecast a slightly clearer afternoon, and upon this hope we forked over another CHF 100 for two half-price tickets for Klein Matterhorn, a.k.a. Matterhorn Glacier Paradise.


Our original sunny day plan was to take a different cable car to Sunegga and Blauherd for the Five Lakes Hike, apparently a hiker’s dream with reflections of the Matterhorn upon five alpine lakes over a 10 km route. But the Five Lakes were farther away from the Matterhorn and subject to more obstructions on a cloudy day, and we opted for the closer Klein Matterhorn at 3883m, the highest cable car station in Europe.

The scenery was breathtaking even through the fog as our gondola flew above the 3500m Breithorn plateau and its mighty glaciers, perpetually grinding down the cliff faces in the same process that has chiselled the Matterhorn into the awe-inspiring pyramid that has fascinated generations of mountaineers.


Still the weather didn’t cooperate.

Despite hours of enduring -7 degrees plus wind chill at the viewing platform, sustained by interludes of hot chocolates and short warming sessions at the restaurant and shop, we caught not even a momentary peek of the Matterhorn, said to be looming invisibly behind these thick clouds. For two straight days we gave our best effort, and failed.


Our best view of the day actually came as we made our descent on the last gondola, when the Matterhorn’s steep northwestern ridge vaguely emerged behind these clouds, teasing us with just a small fraction of its full glory. It was a small consolation for two days of efforts -- not to mention CHF 200 of tickets on top of two nights of lodging in expensive Zermatt -- for one partial glimpse of arguably the world’s most recognizable peak, less than 10 km from the village yet feeling like a world away.


For the rest of the day we slowed down and toured the historic village like any first time visitor, now fully accepting our defeat. We would not get a third chance as our morning train connections for Lake Geneva was scheduled to depart at 08:37 at the latest.


Having spent a small fortune on tickets it was nice to take advantage of our Swiss Travel Pass’ complimentary entry to the Matterhorn Museum, a recreated 19th century village narrating Zermatt’s dramatic rise from an impoverished rural settlement into a world-famous luxury resort due largely to the Matterhorn and the associated mountaineering and winter tourism. Among the highlights is the broken rope from the tragic first ascent that killed four of the seven mountaineers, forerunners to the dozen or so climbers who sadly perish on the Matterhorn’s slopes every year.


After a couple days of supermarket dinner and picnics we reckoned to have earned the rights to one sit-down dinner. In a town where moderately-priced options were few and most exhibited the usual tourist trap warnings of multi-lingual menus, we took a chance on the 120-year-old Du Pont, rumoured to the be the oldest restaurant in Zermatt as well as one of the cheaper.


To be honest everything was better than expected starting with a classic fondue infused with flecks of wild porcini and an intoxicating amount of wine, though I probably should have had more confidence in this century-old institution’s ability to nail its signature dishes.


My wife was satisfied also with her traditional combo of bratwurst and rösti. That night we went to bed early after two emotionally exhausting days, though at the back of my mind we knew we’re still praying for a miracle.

The next morning I woke up at 06:15 and stepped out onto the balcony. The first thing I noticed was a starry sky, through the crisp mountain air without a cloud in sight. The second was a bulbous white object sticking out behind the local hill.

I had a really good feeling about this.

As quickly as I could I put on the windbreaker, grabbed the camera and ran up the hill opposite the Gornegratbahn terminal.


I was breathless. And my uphill run at high altitude wasn’t the only reason.

Now I could leave Zermatt with no regrets.


After breakfast my wife joined me at the Getwingbrücke for our most memorable moment of the entire journey. Nobody but God himself, or probability theory if you’re not religious, decides when the Matterhorn makes her appearance. And God was on our side.


Ominous clouds started rolling in again as we hopped on the 08:37 train back to Visp, now leaving the erratic mountain weather for the Lavaux vineyards in sunny lake country. For readers looking for tips on maximizing the chance of seeing the Matterhorn, my brutally honest advice would be ... keep your plans flexible.