Swiss Chocolate

Saturday, 9 August 2008

European Adventure Travel Day 7
Broc, Switzerland

I know everybody has been dying to know. Switzerland is famous for their chocolate, right? I couldn't possibly have satisfied my cravings with grocery store brands, right?

You're right.

Even though they sell really good chocolate in the grocery stores...

My last day in Switzerland, Joy's friend S took the two of us to Broc, home of the oldest chocolate factory in Switzerland, the Cailler-Nestlè Factory. Nestlè is made in many other factories around the world, but Cailler is unique to Broc. Nestlè and Cailler merged in 1929, but Cailler continued to make chocolate in the traditional way, using fresh Gruyère milk, unlike the Nestlè products that use milk powder. And yes, it is true that the Swiss keep the best for themselves. Wouldn't you? :)

The beautiful Saane Valley, with the Château de Gruyères on the hill

Getting to Broc was highly entertaining. We took S's car, and she argued with the GPS lady most of the way there. The drive was beautiful. We took the road around Lake Geneva, past the hills around the lake where every inch was vineyard, and out to the Savoy Alps. In the Saane Valley, it was warm and absolutely smelled like sunshine.

And then we came upon the chocolate factory. Please excuse the guardrail. Look at the cute little châteaux on the right!

That long white building is where Willy Wonka lives

It was so quiet that day that we thought the factory was closed, but happily, we were wrong. We got to take a tour, beginning in the movie theatre and watching a whimsical film about a girl in candyland, and then another in French about the making of chocolate. Then we went for a tour of the factory- looking at vintage advertisements for chocolate, tasting from great bags of roasted cacao beans, examining the machinery used in the process of creating edible art.

Who ate all the chocolate?

We finally arrived in the tasting room. It's a long room with a mirrored counter stretching from one end to the other, holding every kind of delicious, fresh Cailler chocolate imaginable. No limits. You could eat what you wanted. It's like a dream world.

You could eat AS MUCH AS YOU WANTED. For free!

Of course, after the tasting room was the gift shop (which is rumored to be full of people most of the time, but was empty for us, hooray!). I think I may have eaten too much chocolate at this point to be very tempted, but I did buy some to send home to my family. Joy bought many pounds of yummy-ness, but she only eats the kind without cacao.

For the record: WOW SWISS CHOCOLATE.

I'm sorry everyone, I'm officially a Euro-candy snob. We have much to learn.