A chocolate lovers dream come true
Day 8
On our way to Mürren we made an unscheduled stop at Musée International d’Horlogerie which was more than just a museum, it was a catalog of some of the most magnificent and ancient pieces for keeping time that we had ever seen. Greg’s a major fan of watches, so this was another major highlight of the day. We headed over to the ancient time keeping section. The ancient peoples of Switzerland were fascinating in how they used the moon and stars to understand the 4th dimension. Alas, an ironic twist, the time passed much too quickly and we had to run through the rest to catch a glimpse of everything before being ushered out to the next portion of the voyages for today
"A catalog of some of the most magnificent and ancient pieces for keeping time"
A dream was about to come true today - a chocolate dream. We left Lausanne and came to the Camille Bloch chocolatier and interactive museum; interactive because we saw several demonstrations of how chocolate is made and afterwards received free samples. We made several rounds. There was even a chocolate faucet with sample spoons to taste the difference between the milk chocolate and hazelnut flavors. We went back to double and then triple check the difference, for tasting purposes, not just for our own sweet tooths of course.
We then went to the other side of the building for a chocolate making workshop! Our teacher was very French. The whole group was threatened with dish washing duty if our chocolate did not turn out just so, which received light chuckling. Much to Greg’s chagrin, despite following all of the directions to a T, his was the only hazelnut bar to receive dishwashing status. Luckily, he made it out to the gift shop before he needed to make good on any bad culinary consequences. We bought out practically half the shop and our whole tour group didn’t need lunch, but it was well worth every chocolate calorie.
We had looked forward to this next leg of the journey since we booked this specific tour. Into the mountains we went to a wondrous place inaccessible by car or train. We had to take not one but two gondolas to get there with all our luggage in tow. As we ascended into the mountains above the Lauterbrunnen Valley, we left reality behind and emerged in the soft haze of the fantastical clifftop village of Mürren. Our hotel room had a nice little balcony beyond which was the view of imagination, the likes of which we'd never seen before. These peaks adorned the background of the lightly forested meadows that lay beneath the old stone walls.
Our group dinner was cheese fondue with local bread and potatoes. Nightfall entered with an eerie fog and the sound of cowbells on the hillside to nudge us off to sleep.
