Chocolate Day

Excited!

Today was an exciting day for me - we went to the Lindt Museum - Home of Chocolate.  What's not to like?  Lindt isn't my favourite chocolate, but we were sure that the museum would be good being Swiss and if I could learn anything or be inspired it could only be good!  

The World's tallest chocolate fountain

We were up early, had breakfast, checked out, left our luggage at the hotel and headed to the train station to Kilchberg and then followed the signs to the museum.  We were greated by a huge chocolate fondue in the foyer.  We were early (surprisingly I know) and were told to hang around so we went into the shop for a look around.  We got talking to one of the ladies - Matt told her about my chocolate business and she was really interested, so much so that she wanted my details - so I gave her my card.  She gave me some of their chocolate orange slab to try out which was very nice.  They personalise slabs in the shop and their piping is amazing - something I would like to be able to do, but it takes a lot of practise.  Something the lady confirmed.  

At 10.30 our tickets were valid so we went up to the museum.  We had an audio guide which worked well.  Learned all about the history of chocolate - with the Aztecs (they used to Baptise their children by coating them in chocolate), Europeans (apparently only men could access chocolate houses when it first arrived in Europe - typical!) and then the story of how chocolate as we know it now was made.  It took a lot of trial and error and collaboration between lots of intelligent men before the process was worked out and industrialised.  It was really well set out, with lots of info, interesting displays.  The actual process of getting chocolate from a cocoa bean is so complicated, I don't think I would ever have the patience to do bean to bar chocolate which lots of artisans do.  

Chocolate fountains  - eat as much as you wish!

Just as we were beginning to get weary, we came across 3 chocolate fountains to sample (dark, milk and white).  We got a spoon each and could help ourselves to as much of the fountains as we wished.  The dark was to die for, Matt loved the milk and white and Tom the milk.  We then learnt about the tempering process and then how they treat the chocolate and moulds to make their chocolates.  Considering I have worked out my process by trial and error - I am very very close to how they do theirs.  The only difference is that they heat up their moulds before pouring the chocolate in (I don't as if I do that the chocolate doesn't set properly).  However, the ambient temperature in their factory is probably much cooler than my kitchen.  Everything else was the same, pouring it in, vibrating it to help it fill the mould and then chilling it to help it set before giving it a good hard slap to get it out of the mould.  I was left feeling like I am doing it right!

After this section there were a couple of machines full of slabs of chocolate where you put your hand underneath and a piece of chocolate was smashed and dropped into your hands.  You then had to guess the flavour.  There was chocolate orange (my fav), sea salt and caramel (didn't like this one), plain and extra bitter.  Think I went back to the orange one 3 times.  So much fun to do.

Sample as many as you like

Then there was an area where you could learn about who consumes the most chocolate: Germany was Number 1, UK Number 6 and Switzerland Number 2, couldn't get Belgian up, but reckon they would be number 2.  We then ended up in a tasting room where we could try 8 different Lindt balls.  As I said before it isn't my favourite chocolate, but when in Switzerland...I think I tried about 4.  My favourite was the strawberry one.  Some visitors were taking the mick and stuffing them in their bags - even when they were told not to - AND they weren't English which is a nice change!

We then saw a bit of the production line where some squares were being made, which ended with a giant marble run, where you could scan your ticket and get some chocolate come down to you in a huge golden ball.  The queue for this was quite long, and by then we had had quite a bit of chocolate, so decided to give it a miss.  

Then to the shop, we bought a couple of the flavoured balls to try out later - seemed rude not to.

Lunchtime pretzel

Our hotel!  It's called Chalet Swiss!!

We then got the train back to Zurich central, walked to the hotel, got our luggage, bought some lunch pretzels and found the train to Bern and then Interlaken.  The train to Interlaken was really good - the mountains finally came into view - we 

hugged the coast of Lake Thun and finally saw snow capped mountains.  We found our hotel Swiss Chalet which is exactly as billed.  Our hotel room has an upstairs - so Matt and I are upstairs and Tom downstairs - how cool is that.   

We had showers and our usual downtime rest in the afternoon before heading out to Interlaken.  Now, I think I was about 13 when I came here with Mum and Dad, we camped (I think on the shores of the lake).  On walking through Interlaken I had absolutely no recall at all.  Matt is the same he came here when he was about 13, but he didn't recall anything either.  We aren't sure if that is because the place has changed a lot or whether we just can't remember things from that far back!

ICE with Jungfrau in the background

  So, we walked down the touristy street, looked in the shops (founds some patches, but none to do with Interlaken!) didn't buy anything other than a sticker for the suitcase.  We then carried on in the search for tea.  We came across a street which only sold curries (there are a lot of visitors from the Middle East here), we can have curry at home, so we did a quick search and Matt found a pub, Husi Bier Haus, which was down a back street and sounded interesting.  We found it, it had a great vibe and a special menu for Wednesdays where you can have a filled schnitzel and chips with a free beer - yay, both Matt and I indulged.  Tom went for curry wurst.  Guess who's dinner was biggest - yep, Tom received 2 huge curry wursts, loads of sauce, a pile of chips and no salad - much to his satisfaction - only sprite for a drink though tonight!

Covered bridge and Jungfrau

We all cheered up after a good feed, and decided to walk the long way home across the glacial river.  It was very pleasant, we got a good view of the Jungfrau and the Mönche and enjoyed looking at the beautiful chalets alongside the river, so many lovely properties, I wonder how much they cost?  We planned to pop to the Co-op on the way home so Tom could have pudding, but it was closed - at 8.30pm, just as well we still had some Belgian chocolates and of course our chocolates from this morning on us!

Another good day.