Leysin hike.

On Saturday, Rachel, Harold, Rhianna and I met (from our respective hotels/hostels) at the Geneva main station to catch a train into the mountains. We ended up going on this hike up to a lookout with a revolving restaurant at the top. We had to take a cog-wheel train up to Leysin, which was on of the steepest train rides I've taken so far!

The day was a little hazy and cloudy, but quite warm. The hike was really beautiful. We hiked through a forest that smelled like Minnesota (all pine-y and wood-smoke-y) and through rocky hillsides covered with Alpine flowers, with beautiful views of mountains surrounding us. It really is times like this when I wonder how on earth I ended up being so lucky to live in a place where I can easily go hiking in the Alps and be surrounded by such beauty.

We hiked up to the top and enjoyed the views from a terrace at the top. We ended up starting back late enough that we took the gondola down the mountain, since we had to get our bags from the train station before the man left for the night.

From Leysin we started back to Zürich, with a stop for fondue in Fribourg at Rachel and Harold's favorite fondue place. The fondue was really quite excellent, and it felt so exotic to start out the day in Geneva, train to the mountains and have a beautiful hike, then train back to Zürich, stopping in a random city to have great fondue. Overall, it was quite a lovely trip. 

A Day of Cheese and Chocolate. Because this is Switzerland, after all...

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.

Around Bulle.

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.

Vats of cheese!

Testing to see if the consistency is right.

Cheese going into the molds.

Salt baths for the cheese.

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.

The village is super cute. And touristy.

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!