Wow what a day!

Mind you, it didn't start so well. The people in the room next to us were incredibly noisy last night, building pyramids with their furniture. Well, I don't know what they were doing but they were awfully noisy in the wee small hours with their furniture. It sounded like it was being thrown around the room. Then a couple of hours later I had several phone calls from a Vivian in Sydney, Australia who was quite apologetic when I explained to her (quite assertively) that I was in Geneva where it was 3.23 am, and she was in Sydney where it was 11.23am. She stopped ringing.

So we went down to brekky and had a lovely chat with an American from San Francisco. We left the hostel by 8am, and returned at 8pm!

We made our way to the bus depot to join our tour. There were 8 of us on a little Merc bus (one lovely Scottish couple, a couple from Paris and a couple from Bordeaux). Our tour guide was a lovely lady from Geneva who, until last August, was a primary school teacher. She loves her new job - she says it's like always being on holiday and she gets to participate in all the lovely things we did. We drove along the lake, through Lausanne and then up to a little village called Broc, in the Gruyere region. This is where Nestlé/Cailler have their factory. It was a wonderful tour. They give you the history of chocolate in the world, a la Disneyland. Very impressive. After the history you go through the sampling room - I certainly didn't sample all of the chocolates, Tom put up a good effort but couldn't do it. Then we arrived at the factory shop. We bought a few things. I'll say no more.

After this our little bus took us to a little cheese factory where we had a platter of locally made ham, sausage and various cheeses, followed by an authentic Swiss cheese fondue, THAT TOM MADE, with wine. Yes - amazing I know, but apparently that's the way it's done in Switzerland - fondues are cooked by the men. This was followed by meringue with Gruyere double cream - so thick you can turn the bowl upside down and it stays put! Our guide then took us to the cheese making room and the blessed cheese maker (for we know they shall inherit the earth) showed us part of his manufacturing process and we also watched a video presentation on the rest of the process.

After this we returned to our bus and were taken to the village of Gruyere itself, an ancient medieval town perched high on a hill. We just explored the village, walking around the outer walls of the castle.

After this we were taken to another village where we melt the Golden Panorama Express train. We had lovely seats in panoramic carriages and were taken down the mountain through beautiful countryside to Montreux (another language lesson - I thought it was "Mont-row" but it's "Mon-true"). There we were met by our little bus again and taken to a hotel "Le Baron Tavernier" which has a lovely area above the lake called "The Deck", where we were given more wine and nibblies. THEN we were returned to Geneva.

We were so exhausted and not at all hungry, so we didn't bother with dinner.