Feeling like Charlie in the chocolate factory

You’ve always wanted to feel like Charlie in the chocolate factory? The MOB chocolate train lets you immerse yourself in the world of Willy Wonka. Katrina and her friend tested it for you.

A trip on Switzerland’s Orient Express

Well-rest­ed and ready for the day, we meet for cof­fee and tea at the new­ly ren­o­vat­ed restau­rant of Mon­treux Youth Hos­tel on Thurs­day. We skip break­fast on pur­pose, as there are a few sweet treats await­ing us today.
I find it par­tic­u­lar­ly dif­fi­cult because my high­light at the youth hos­tel is always the exten­sive break­fast buf­fet.

Best weath­er awaits us this Thurs­day morn­ing. ©Kat­ri­na

We check out, say good­bye to Lucas, the Hos­tel Man­ag­er, and his team before tak­ing the bus to Mon­treux sta­tion. Mani and the choco­late train team are already wait­ing for us. Yes, that’s right – today we get to test the choco­late train, a dream of every child, choco­late lover and any­one who’s ever want­ed to feel like Char­lie. Today we are embark­ing on the jour­ney with­out Mani’s com­pa­ny. Our guide gives us all the infor­ma­tion we need and off we go. We start our jour­ney on the Belle Époque train, also known as Switzerland’s Ori­ent Express. Wow – the train is so beau­ti­ful and the seats are so com­fort­able that you could stay seat­ed for hours.

Def­i­nite­ly the Ori­ent Express of Switzer­land. ©Kat­ri­na

The Belle Epoque train of the MOB. ©Kat­ri­na

The expe­ri­ence can be booked from 2 May to 28 Sep­tem­ber 2023. In May, June and Sep­tem­ber, the train runs on Tues­days, Thurs­days and Sun­days as well as on Fri­days and Sat­ur­days in July and August.

From milk to cheese

On the jour­ney from Mon­treux to Mont­bovon, we’re served a deli­cious choco­late roll and cof­fee. Enjoy­ing the view, we savour the ride and our break­fast. In Mont­bovon we change to the bus, which takes us to La Mai­son du Gruyère. Here we learn about the pro­duc­tion of the world-famous Gruyère cheese in an inter­ac­tive way. Did you know that the be-all and end-all of a good cheese is the qual­i­ty of the milk? In addi­tion to cheese mak­ing, we learn about the excit­ing his­to­ry of Gruyère. After the tour, we check out the shop and stock up on cheese.

Cheese as far as the eye can see. ©Kat­ri­na

Lunch break in the charming old town

Our jour­ney con­tin­ues. After a short bus ride, we reach the small, charm­ing old town of Gruyères. We’ve nev­er been here before and are already fans before we real­ly enter the old town. We stroll through the alleys and mar­vel at the beau­ti­ful build­ings and the cas­tle. Here you have the option to make a detour to the cas­tle – the entrance fee is not includ­ed in the expe­ri­ence. After the walk, we begin our search for a restau­rant and quick­ly find what we are look­ing for. There are tons and the spe­cial­i­ty is, of course, fon­due. We have a tasty sal­ad, because the ther­mome­ter reads: «too hot for fon­due.»

Def­i­nite­ly worth a vis­it, the charm­ing old town of Gruyères. ©Kat­ri­na

Off to the Land of Plenty

Replen­ished, it’s back to our coach and time to wait for now. Punc­tu­al­i­ty isn’t nec­es­sar­i­ly a giv­en in oth­er cul­tures. The jour­ney con­tin­ues to Broc. This is where Cailler’s famous choco­late fac­to­ry is locat­ed. The com­pa­ny was found­ed over 200 years ago by François-Louis Cailler. We learn the whole sto­ry on the tour of the muse­um.

Unfor­tu­nate­ly you can’t eat this choco­late bar but don’t wor­ry you’ll get more than enough choco­late to try. ©Kat­ri­na

We go from room to room, get­ting excit­ing infor­ma­tion from our audio guide. After each short sequence, the door to the next room opens. Wow, muse­um takes on a whole new mean­ing here. After the tour, we’re stand­ing in a mini ver­sion of the pro­duc­tion halls and learn how choco­late is made. Short­ly after­wards, we arrive in the land of plen­ty, where you can taste-test choco­late. We test our way through the huge offer­ing until we feel sick and have to stop.
In the shop we buy one or two sou­venirs for our friends and head home. The group trav­els back to Mon­treux by bus, Ricar­da and I head straight back to Zurich.

Besides the pro­duc­tion you can also look over the shoul­ders of a choco­late artist. ©Kat­ri­na

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