My Swiss friends

My first really adventure was a trip to Australia in 1994, where I studied English and made friends through a three-month course. I studied hard to get an English certificate called "First Certificate in English" (highly appreciated exam in Europe run by Cambridge University) . We had seen each other for ten years since then.
My purpose of this trip is to visit some of my friends after ten years. My Swiss French friend, Frederic lives in a lovely city of Neuchatel. We visited a cheese dairy of Gruyere, a famous Swiss mountain cheese. There are some cheese daires who keep their tradition of making cheese manually. But the factory applies the latest technology to make it possible to produce efficiently by only three workers.

 

 

After that, we hiked a few hours, enjoying a typical rural landscape like the picture below:

 

In the evening, I was invited to dinner at his parent's house to have a typical Swiss home dish called "Racrette".

 

 

First of all, the cheese is heated.  Once it melts, the surface is removed by a knife and served on a plate.

 This cheese dish is accompanied with boiled potatoes, pickled cucumbers and cured jam.

 

Zopf, a traditional Sunday Swiss bread made with white flour, plenty of milk and butter. It is my favourite.

 

Laveux is the wine growing area situated on the hill beside a lake, designated by UNESCO World heritage. We went there to taste some white wines and it was a beautiful day.

In the evening, we came back to a lovely Neuchatel and we had dinner there. What I had was Saucisson Neuchâtelois, a traditional Swiss sausage.

After leaving Neuchatel, on the way to Zurich, I went to visit another friend, Daniela. She picked me up at the station near her house and invited me for dinner. Even though it was a short visit, while she was preparing pizza and bruschetta (toast with chopped tomato) and having dinner, we talked a lot about our old days and what happened last ten years in Italian and English. This time, I had a chance to talk to her elder brother (who looks quite alike their father) and her son.