Gruyères

Gruyères stands on an isolated hill north of the Alps, where the Sarine leaves the Fribourg mountains. The Counts of Gruyère built their castle on the hilltop to control the upper valley, and the town grew up beneath it; nineteen counts are recorded between the 11th and 16th centuries. The present castle was built between 1270 and 1282, and in 1397 Count Rudolph IV confirmed an older town charter modelled on that of Moudon.

The end of the 15th century was the counts' golden age: in 1476 Count Louis fought on the side of the Confederates in the Burgundian Wars, and the castle's esplanade and chapel, the spiral staircase in its courtyard and its main building were remodelled. The last count, Michel, was in financial trouble for most of his life and went bankrupt in 1554. From 1555 to 1798 the castle was the seat of the bailiffs, and later the prefects, sent by Fribourg.

In 1849 the castle was sold to the Bovy and Balland families, who spent their summers there and restored it with the help of painter friends. The canton of Fribourg bought it back in 1938 and opened it to the public as a museum. The town's later fame came from its cheese and its intact medieval street, which made it an important tourist location, and the artist H. R. Giger later acquired the Saint-Germain Castle, which now houses his museum.

Gruyères lies in the Catholic, French-speaking district of Gruyère in the canton of Fribourg, and identity here is bound up with dairy farming. Franco-Provençal is still used in rural areas of French-speaking Switzerland, and the Gruyères poet Joseph Yerly wrote in it. The Fribourg traditions of the Bénichon, an autumn feast of harvests with a large shared meal, and the Désalpe, when the herds come down from the alpine pastures, are kept up across the area.

The castle is the cultural centre of the town, with a regional museum, an arts museum and concerts and theatre performances. Its chapel of St John the Baptist has two stained-glass windows from the late 15th century. The counts were buried under the altar of the parish church.

The town's most unexpected neighbour is the HR Giger Museum in the Saint-Germain Castle, a permanent collection of the Swiss artist's dark, biomechanical work, with the Giger Bar opposite, and next to it a museum of antiquities from Tibet. Giger, known for his designs for the Alien films, made it a popular tourist destination.

The municipality had about 2,200 people in December 2020, spread between the medieval town on its hill, the villages of Épagny and Pringy at its foot, the small village of Saussivue, the holiday settlement of Moléson-Village and isolated farms. In 2008 about 15 per cent of residents were foreign nationals, and French is the first language of nine in ten.

Cheese has always been the economy: the town formerly lived from trading cheese and livestock, and farming still supplies the raw materials for cheese and meat production, with Gruyère the most important product. Tourism is the other pillar, with the castle, the museums, the restaurants of the main street and the show dairy attracting large numbers of day visitors.

Life is quiet once the day visitors leave. Bulle, the district capital, is about 4.5 km away, and the mountain of Moléson, at 2,002 metres the highest point of the municipality, rises behind the town.

The town gave its name to Gruyère, a hard cheese that originated in the cantons of Fribourg, Vaud, Neuchâtel, Jura and Bern, and gained the protected AOC label in 2001, which became an AOP in 2013. Fully aged, from five months to a year, it develops small cracks and a slightly grainy texture. It is a good melting cheese, suited above all to fondue alongside Vacherin Fribourgeois.

Fondue made from Gruyère and Vacherin is served in every restaurant in Gruyères. The classic dessert is meringue, a sweet of whipped egg whites, served with Gruyère cream, a thick double cream of about 50 per cent fat that originates in the region, or with berries; the local dairy herds also supply ice cream sold in the town.

The Fribourg Bénichon menu includes cuchaule, a saffron brioche served with Bénichon mustard. Nearby Broc has the Maison Cailler chocolate factory, whose tours cover the brand's history and chocolate-making and end in a tasting room.