This picturesque little town in the milk and cheese producing canton of Fribourg is a worthy stop on any itinerary of Switzerland. The medieval village atop its hill with its cobbled Main Street, the beautiful chateaux and the stunning backdrop of the Alps is guaranteed to take your breath away.

This pretty town was included in our itinerary after much contemplation. We were trying to decide if we should head straight to Zermatt or have a pit stop at Gruyères. We were glad we did!

The town is connected to Bern and other major destinations in the French speaking Geneva region. As we were driving to Zermatt from Basel, we decided to stop here for an hour and also grab our lunch before heading to Zermatt.

We parked at Car park 3 and walked up the steep hill to arrive at the centre of the village. It was quite crowded when we arrived but most of the crowd was cluttered around the famous fountain in the middle of the Main Street. We walked around the town a bit and up to the chateaux. We would have probably visited it if we had time simply due to its stunning setting.

Our lunch was a Panini at one of the cafes. We had to skip the famous cheese fondue because the cheese wasn’t vegetarian.

The cheese factory that has been producing the Gruyère AOP cheese using the same process since 1115 and is located right below the hill near the cute little train station. Milk from the region is delivered to the factory within a few hours of them being produced. The process of cheese making starts almost as soon as the milk arrives. They have factory tours and also a restaurant that serves the fondue. They are believed to serve the most authentic fondue in the most reasonable price!

The stop at Gruyères took us about an hour and fifteen minutes. That included parking, walking up and around the walled town, buying our paninis and visiting a few of the shops that sold the cheese and other souvenirs.