I dropped Kara off at the airport early on Sunday morning and immediately went in to work at the lab, which was the start of a working vortex week. Based on the very limited availability of the instruments that I need to use for my research and the time-sensitive nature of the experiments that I do, I had to work super long days, at times running 4 or 5 concurrent timed experiments. It was all I could do to keep all of my timers straight!
On Thursday night I was finally done with that round of experiments, just in time for
Jessi Patton to come and visit me! She arrived early on Friday morning, and we headed off for a weekend in the French-speaking part of Switzerland. I have to admit that I was a little fried after the work week, which is probably why I managed to forget my camera!!! Thankfully Jessi had her camera, so the photo credits belong to her.
We stayed in
a little B&B in
Corpataux, which is a super small village in Kanton Fribourg. To me it is incredible that we could rely on public transportation to take us from this really small village to explore the region. Hooray for Swiss public transportation!
On Saturday, we decided to visit
Gruyéres, which is the home of Gruyere cheese, my current favorite cheese. We had a short stop in Bulle on our way there and were able to wander around the town for a little while.
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| Around Bulle. |
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| We thought this man looked like he was going to backhand someone. So un-Swiss! |
Our first stop in Gruyéres was a tour of the cheese factory, and, aside from a super hokey guided tour narrated by Cherry the cow, the tour was pretty interesting. We got to watch cheese being made and tested and pressed, etc.
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| Vats of cheese! |
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| Testing to see if the consistency is right. |
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| Cheese going into the molds. |
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| Salt baths for the cheese. |
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| Cheese aging rooms. |
After the tour, we walked up to the actual village of Gruyéres, which is a super cute village with a castle. To be honest, the castle was not as interesting as I hoped, but it was still fun to take the tour.
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| The village is super cute. And touristy. |
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| Weird art installation at the castle. This was a circle of hope? |
And, of course, we had some high-quality fondue while overlooking the valley and mountains.
From there, we decided to go to the
Cailler chocolate factory, since we were in the area. The place was really busy, but we did get on one of the last English-language tours. The tour was very interesting, and not just because it was a guided tour with no tour guide. Our group was started by a person, but then we were guided through the tour by an audio narrator and doors opening at the correct times. It was a very interesting concept. We learned that Cailler chocolate is the only kind that is made with real milk and not with milk powder. We also got to sample many of the varieties of Cailler chocolate at the end of the tour.
It was quite a decadent day- cheese and chocolate galore!
