Day 5 – Chocolate and Cheese

The weather cleared up, and we had partly cloudy skies with no rain for today.  There are many different things to see and do here, so it’s a difficult decision, but we decided to fill our day with chocolate, cheese, trains and boats.

We started the day on our balcony and were treated to this beautiful sight.

We then had breakfast before walking down to the train station, where we would take the Golden Pass line across the mountains behind Montreux, toward the town of Broc-Fabric where we would take a tour of the Cailler chocolate factory.

The train slowly climbed up the mountain, ascending a series of switchbacks and tunnels and we slowly make our way up and over the pass.

We reached the Montbovon station where we changed trains to a different line.

The train carried us past many farms in the rolling countryside.

We arrived at Broc-Fabrique and found the chocolate factory.

Here is Nadine posing with a large chocolate bar outside.

The tour was interesting, but the best part was the tasting!

After the tour, we headed back to the train station to go to the village of Gruyères to visit a cheese factory, and also to have a good fondue lunch in the medieval town up the hill from the train station.

We returned to Montreux by train, and when transferring to the second train, we were treated to a classic first class carriage, which we had completely to ourselves. This was a nice surprise, as the train we took up in the morning didn’t have anything like this.

Here we are coming back into Montreux.

It was getting late in the day, but since it was a nice day, we thought we’d run down to the pier and try to grab a lake boat somewhere. We didn’t really care where it went, but wanted to see something by water. We arrived just as the last boat of the day was ready to depart for Vevey, where we would change to a different ship to get the last boat back again to Montreux.

These boats are part of the Swiss public transportation system, and are included with out travel passes. Because we have first class passes, we were able to ride on the top deck for better views.

Here is our hotel as seen from the water.

The town of Vevey looks very nice, but we didn’t get to spend much time here.

After arriving back in Montreux, we walked back to the hotel to freshen up, and headed across the street to the hotel’s terrace restaurant for a nice dessert.

My night photos don’t always turn out so well, but here are a couple of pictures from after our dessert.

It was a very full day, and now it’s time for bed!

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