Gruyere, but no cheese!

Today we spent some time exploring our new neck of the woods.  We initially wanted to go to Rochers-de-Naye. Google maps said it was an 18 minute drive from our house in Montreux. No problem, a quick car trip to a nice hike for the afternoon...or so we thought.

We should have known to nix this trip when we literally pull out of our garage and are stopped by a police officer for going the wrong way on the street. It seems that overnight they have changed our street to a one way street due to construction. We initially thought they were telling us we weren't allowed to drive on the street and began explaining that we lived here, so we didn't have a choice. But that wasn't it. The officer had BK get out of the car to show him the no left turn sign in front of the driveway. Oops. BK told him that the other cars were going that way, so he thought it was fine. The police officer's response? "If all the cars drove into the lake, would you follow?" Really? Who says that? Swiss police officers, apparently.

After all that (and somehow absconding a 100 CHF fine) we were off. The problem now was that navigation was saying that it was close to a 50 minute drive, and we could not figure out how to get to where we were going. We tried a couple of different routes, but kept ending up on roads that weren't open or ones that we were not supposed to be on. So ultimately we changed plans and decided that we should go explore the Gruyere region instead. Off we went! We felt like we should make the most of the beautiful weather.

BK thought that we would be going to somewhere on a lake, so when we weren't headed that way, we really were not even sure as to where we were headed. No worries though, we got there. Gruyere is a no car town, so you park outside of the city walls and walk up to the medieval town center.

Headed up to the city

BK has Baby K in nearly all of the pictures included in this post, but he can't seem to get enough of her on the weekends. Of course, I love and appreciate this a lot!

Right off we stumbled upon a bike race happening inside the city walls.

Bikers headed up the hill

When we arrived it was time for an afternoon meal for Baby K, so we walked around a bit and found a restaurant to stop in. Before stopping though, we found one of the three museums in Gruyere- the alien museum. Weird, just weird, and totally out of place in this cobblestoned medieval town. We didn't go, but neither of us are big sci-fi fans.

Outside of the alien museum

We also ran into these guys on the way to finding somewhere to eat. They were doing a concert in the main plaza. It was a very Swiss experience.

Headed to their concert

We stopped for a snack for us and meal for Baby K at one of the little restaurants in the main plaza that had a view into the pre-alps outside of Gruyere.

Fun times with Mom and Dad

After we all ate, we headed up to the castle, which is the main attraction in Gruyere. You may be wondering, what about all the cheese? The cheese is spread out through a region. At the end of our outing we found a sign that detailed a two hour hike you could do, taking you to various fromageries. But inside the walls, no cheese.

Gruyeres Castle

The castle was nice to explore and walk around. It's your typical Swiss medieval castle. It is very well preserved and they provide you with good information about the various exhibits and rooms.

Touring around the castle

Gruyere is really a small village. As we were leaving the castle and discussing what to do next, I mentioned that I thought it would be weird if we came here and didn't even try any Gruyere cheese. BK agreed, so we set off to find a fromagerie.

The only one we found that was still open at 5:30 in the afternoon was just outside of the city walls. It looked like a really big place. We went in and contemplated going on the tour, but after we saw that we could do a two hour hike and go around to various fromageries, we decided against doing cheese today. This is only 25 minutes or so from our house, so we'll be back soon to do that. We both agreed this would be a place we would bring visitors for a day trip as well. 

I see lots of these little day trips in our future. Tonight we were discussing where we wanted to travel this fall, so I'm sure we'll be off on new adventures soon. For those of you who thought this would be about how great the cheese was today, at least we took pictures of some of the aging cheese...

Shelves and shelves of Gruyere