We’re not a food traveler, even as more and more Filipinos are becoming one. They travel to eat, so to speak, or to discover interesting cuisines and go on gastronomic adventures.
Not only are Filipinos traveling more these days, here and abroad, they’re also becoming consummate travelers, knowing exactly what to do, where to eat and shop in their choice destinations.
This is why we think that the medieval town of Gruyere in Switzerland will make an interesting destination for today’s Filipino travelers who want to go off the beaten path.
Gruyere is for lovers of food, history, scenery, romance—and the movies.
Gruyere is cheese heaven. It is idyllic, romantic and a place that transports you back in time—even as you have a healthy filling meal.
This sprawl on the mountains overlooking the river Saane has a castle that dates back to the 13th century.
The museum showcases the art of H. R. Giger, the late Swiss artist who won the Oscar for Best Visual Effects for the film “Alien.”
The museum contains the biggest collection of Giger’s paintings, sculptures, furnishings and film sets.
Across from the Giger museum, a few meters away from the Gruyere Castle, is the HR Giger bar, which we ducked into as it began to drizzle one early afternoon of July last year.
We enjoyed a lovely Switzerland weather that time of year.
The sight that greeted us made our jaw drop. It was surreal—the chairs and ceilings were like the vertebra of some prehistoric creatures. It was a funny, strange feeling plopping your body on them.
They reflected Giger’s biomechanical style—an anachronistic future right smack in the center of a medieval setting. We hadn’t seen any bar like it.
Born in 1940 in Chur, Switzerland, Giger was known for his imagination that fleshed out the surreal and the macabre, a fusion of man and machine.
It is reported how Giger’s art book, “Necronomicon,” caught the eye of director Ridley Scott who was in the process of crafting a creature for his film. The creature became the Alien designed by Giger.
Today, tourists flock to the museum and to this visually interesting bar to have a feel of the famous artist and his “Alien.”
The bar with the biomechanical feel was the counterpoint to our earlier idyllic experience that morning—on the farm where one could catch the sight of cows and the sounds of cow bells, and in a hundred-year-old cheese factory.
Fifty years ago, it was turned into an exhibition site and opened to the public to show the cheesemaking process.
The Gruyere cheese factory produces about 48 wheels a day. Visitors peer down on the cheesemaking through panoramic glass windows.
Cheese commerce
Cheese had been the product of this town since the 8th century. It was the main source of revenue. Merchants took the cheese commerce route.
A signage in the factory stated how the “rounds of Gruyere cheese, which weighed around 20 kg,” were sold around the area and beyond, as far as Lyon, which took about three weeks to reach in those early days.
On our factory tour, we learned that a cheesemaker trains for four years, no less.
This cheesemaking town is cozy and small, its population less than a thousand.
We had lunch al fresco, in the restaurant up on a hill, with a view of the mountains and the town. We had a big salad and cheese fondue.
And believe it, there’s nothing like having cheese fondue right in cheese heaven in Gruyere.
From cheese heaven, we drove to chocolate heaven in Cailler-Nestlé Chocolate Factory in Broc. But that’s another story.