Gruyères: Cheese Factory

Actually, the cheese factory we visited was not in Gruyères itself, rather in the neighbouring town of Pringy (Switzerland, not to be confused with the three Pringys in France). They had a nice playground outside.

An interesting self-guided tour. We got to smell things the cows eat, like wild violets, and vanilla-orchids. Wow, yum. They also gave us a package each with three differently aged Gruyère cheese samples (3, 6, and 12 months, I think). Good too. This was included in the admission price.

See the milk in the vat on the left? That's where they churn it.

Those across the way are the molds in which they let the cheese set. They flip them every 12 hours I think.

A lot of cheese!
This is a machine which crawls down the aisles and automatically removes and flips each wheel of cheese before replacing it on the shelf. Cool to watch.