Gruyere, Interlaken, Gimmelwald, Switzerland

After leaving the Barolo, Italy wine region we head north into Switzerland. We stopped in Gruyere, Switzerland where they make Gruyere cheese. We toured one of the cheese factories and here is a shot of the huge wheels of cheese aging.

We spent New Year's Day in Interlaken, Switzerland and then took a gondola up into the alps (the only way to reach this town) to the town of Gimmelwald. It was snowing like crazy and we all agreed that this is what we imagined Switzerland to be. Here is a picture of a bunch of cow bells hanging from the eve of a house, a picture of Jack in the gondola and a group shot.

A "not so funny at the time" story about our Switzerland visit came courtesy of Stella our dog. Right outside our hotel there was a big New Year's Day celebration going on which included parades, a band, lots of food booths and fireworks. Knowing that Stella hates fireworks or any loud noises, we left her safely (so we thought ) locked in our room. After the fireworks and dinner we went back to our room to find the door open and Stella gone. Fear and panic doesn't even start to cover how we were feeling. We filed reports with the police, our hotel, the tourist information center and scoured the city and one town over for 2-3 hours with no sign of her. We finally went back to the hotel and spent a sleepless night worrying about our dog who had never spent a night outside in her life, and definitely not a night in the mountains and snow. The next morning Kenny started hunting early, then came back to get all of us. When we were all loaded up in the car his cell phone rang with the news we'd been hoping for - Stella was found and on her way to the hotel. We all held our breath until she pranced into the hotel lobby and then found out that she had spent the night curled up in some sort of military installation under some stairs about 8 MILES from our hotel. The lady who returned her said her husband was in the military and got a call that morning about Stella being behind a fence in the military area. She went and coaxed her out and called the police. We figured out that she had gotten freaked out by the fireworks, jumped up and clawed at the door until she caught the lever doorknob and got it open. The door to our hotel opened automatically with motion, so she was free to bolt when she got close to it. So our Christmas present was one lucky, tired, hungry and smelling like a cow pooch.