Feeling like Charlie in the chocolate factory

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.

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.

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.

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.»

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.

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.