a belated happy dad's day

i did not forget about father's day since my dad was actually here in switzerland! although he and mom were away for the weekend, we spent one day biking together soon after and i think that counts as a pretty good father's day. we rode part of route 62 backwards, starting in Chatel-St-Denis near Gruyeres. i'm a little embarrassed to say that we only made it to Romont, 33km total ride, because the hills of this region are deceiving! from the train the terrain appears gentle and rolling, but we managed to find some very fierce hills. on one of the downhills i reached a speed of 38 mph- so you can imagine the climbing we did.

the route is really nice for anyone looking for a moderate ride- located between Lausanne and Fribourg with no major mountains in the way. you just need to hop on a train with your bike and within 30 minutes you are ready to bike through the hay fields, "rolling" hills and small swiss towns with mountain vistas in view. not much traffic- but a few tractors...

i'm pretty sure that dad enjoyed the ride, and hoping that the rest of you enjoyed a great father's day!

CHocolate.

broq fabrique, and maison callier

this past week i took a trip to Broc-Fabrique to see the place where Callier chocolate is made. Broc is in the hills of the Gruyere region, just a few kilometers from the town of Gruyere where this famous cheese is made. since cacao is not produced in Switzerland there must be something very special about the milk produced in this region to create such great cheese and chocolate!

we stepped off the train and could already smell the chocolate. we quickly hustled into the Nestle "factory outlet" to purchase some chocolate bars and other goodies before it closed. at this point we'd already taken three trains, smelled chocolate in the air, and now were looking at bars and bars of the stuff. i was practically drooling.

old chocolate packaging- great design!

apparently, chocolate is quite good for your health... dietary fiber, minerals, even a natural anti-depressant: 

chocolate is healthy!

the actual production lines are far from view, but a unique video/interactive exhibit tells the story of chocolate arriving in europe and the first brand of chocolate in switzerland: Callier, now owned by Nestle. the best part of the exhibit for me was the mini production line where we saw chocolate being extruded, cut into pieces, then coated by melted chocolate, picked up by a robot and placed into a little wrapper which we could then take for tasting. by this point we were dying to taste some chocolate- yum! the tour ended with a fantastic tasting room- i couldn't even make it around the room- some were too dark and some too sweet for me or perhaps it was just chocolate overload. on the way back we made a stop to pick up some salty snacks and i think we're all taking a short break from chocolate.

the tasting room.