Hello folks! It seems we’ve gone an entire month without an update, and that’s because we’ve been busy traveling around and visiting new exciting places. So in case you were going through PandaBytes withdrawal, fear not! We have several exciting updates on the way.. starting… now!

La Gruyère is a district of Switzerland just northeast of Lake Geneva, where we ventured to for a weekend trip at the end of April. The area is well-known as a popular skiing destination and also a great place to get a peek of Swiss countryside life. And without a doubt, the region contains some of the most breathtaking pre-alpine landscape I have ever seen, and you can easily picture Heidi (from the popular children’s stories) playing about on the lush green mountainsides.

The area is also well-known for it’s famous Gruyère cheese, which is made from cow’s milk, and has a sweet but slightly salty flavor that varies widely with age. Of course, once I found out about this, we made a point of visiting the La Maison du Gruyère (cheese dairy) to see where it’s made and score some free samples

So, we had hopped on a train in Geneva on Friday and after a few hours we arrived at the small capital town of the district called Bulle, where we then took a taxi through the mountains until we reached our hotel in the nearby small Swiss village of Charmey (map). When I say small, I think there are maybe two streets, and two hotels with a few small shops along the main street. If you want to dine out in town, you basically have those two hotels to choose from The big attraction in Charmey, however, is Les Bains de La Gruyère (Gruyère Baths), which contains two large pools (indoor and outdoor) filled with heated natural spring water, massage jets, Nordic and Oriental steam baths, and all sorts of other spa features that I still don’t fully understand (an ice pool?!?). But now that I think about it, I’m pretty sure Paula knew exactly what she was doing when she suggested we stay here!

Of course, what trip to the Swiss countryside would be complete without a visit to a medieval castle? Well, lucky for us there was the nearby Château de Gruyères (Gruyères Castle), which is set up on a high hill and overlooking the entire region. The castle was constructed in the 13th century, and was home to a long succession of Gruyères counts before becoming the popular tourist attraction it is today. We spent a day trekking up a huge hill to reach the medieval town within the castle walls, and set about exploring for several hours.

Afterwards, we decided to visit the HR Giger Museum, which also resides in the medieval village, and seemed just a “bit out of place”. For those of you who aren’t familiar with the name, HR Giger is probably best-known for designing the freaky creatures seen in the Alien films starring Sigourney Weaver. Well, I will also tell you straight up after visiting the museum, that those creatures are just the tip of a very large and rather messed up iceberg of paintings and sculptures that comprise Giger’s life work. Indeed, if the thought of cyber-erotic-alien-women in compromising positions isn’t your thing, you may wish to to steer clear. After we had seen enough, we then crossed the street for a drink at the rather hilarious HR Giger bar, which looks exactly like you are in an Alien spacecraft. I ordered some green drink and a biscuit.

We hope you enjoy the pictures, and stay tuned for another exciting PandaBytes update soon!

CLICK HERE to View All La Gruyère Pics!