Cheese. Don't forget the cheese! — An Elegant Sufficiency

We’ve become accustomed to making our way through these narrow pedestrianised streets, but it’s so much easier early in the morning, especially on a Sunday.

We were soon out on the open road and into the countryside. We were heading into Emmental.

Through apple growing country, where the harvest was just starting.

We passed so many beautiful properties along the way. “How about this one?” I asked, knowing that just around the corner there will be another…

Set in such lush green pasture, these traditional Emmental homes have a distinctive style.

Small towns, such as Huttwil, are an attractive diversion from the glorious countryside as well.

Our first destination was the Emmentaler Schaukäserei. It’s somewhere we’ve been before, but is a reliable source of cheese, both for our picnic and to bring home. It’s also quite a fun place to visit.

Priorities. First, a drink and a little people watching!

Because, on this sunny Sunday, there was a lot going on. Tractor rides for children, a family party taking place on a lawn adjacent to the vintage tractor collection and a few demonstrations of traditional country skills.

As a few elderly gentlemen demonstrated some pretty energetic manual skills - threshing, knife sharpening and suchlike, the youngsters at the party watched on, wine glasses in hand.

Someone else was watching every move too, demanding attention now and again.

We went inside, overlooking the cheesemaking process to begin with.

But there were distractions! Fudge…

traditional Scherenschnitte and quite a lot of…well, you can guess!

Cheese!

We soon found what we thought would be an ideal lunchtime picnic selection - a tasting set of the various types of Emmental on offer here. We could decide which one to take home with us! Except…that would be too late to buy it here.

We wandered over to the counter, where a rosy cheeked lady greeted us warmly and asked if she could help. I explained that we wanted to take some cheese home, that all the Emmental cheese in my local supermarket is made in the Czech Republic (have a look next time you buy some!) and it’s pretty tasteless. When I asked for her advice about which to choose, she pared off small slices of each one for my Hero and I to try. We soon made a decision, she cut us a fairly large piece and then cut it into two before vacuum packing each one to take home. That way, we wouldn’t need to eat it all at the same time. How thoughtful.

Chatting as she packed and labelled it, she asked where we called home and on hearing Gloucestershire, she smiled - she loved South West England and had a particularly soft spot for Cornwall and St Michael’s Mount. “If only…” she said. We replied that for us, Emmental was pretty special and agreed that we could swap places for a month each year…. I might have added that the grass is always greener - except that right now, that’s a very one sided observation, bearing in mind our dry, yellow garden!

Such delightful people make being here a pleasure and as we headed over to the bakery, we agreed, it was a good choice to stop here. We ran the gauntlet of the doughnut machine in the front of the bakery (oh, that unmistakeable aroma!) and soon identified a small loaf of bread to go with our cheese.

As we were being served, we noticed the Kirschscnitte right there in front of us and still feeling bereft of our favourite Zuger Kirschtorte, we soon had dessert organised as well.

With one last look over the Emmental scenery, we jumped back in the car and continued on our way.

Enjoying the landscape already, the arrival of a small steam train on the line to our right only enhanced the view. (I’m not sure the black smoke coming from its funnel did much for the fresh air in the valley though)

Our destination was somewhere that Yvonne had suggested to me at the opera last evening. She knows I am interested in textiles and that we had very much enjoyed a gallery that she and Res had taken us to on a previous visit. Her suggestion was the Abegg Stiftung where she said we would find a breathtaking collection of antique ethnic textiles. It opened at 2pm on a Sunday, so we’d be there in time to enjoy our picnic first, we hoped.

It’s in a fabulous setting too.

We’d hoped to find somewhere along the way to stop and enjoy our picnic, but here we were, at the museum already. Thankfully, there were some tables and chairs outside the museum and it was here that we settled down to enjoy our cheese tasting.

It didn’t last long…and the kirsch schnitten didn’t even last long enough for a photo!

As we sat enjoying our lunch we’d heard a whirring sound coming from somewhere. The mystery was solved when a small robot lawn mower trundled over the hill and went on its way, mowing the grass as it went! How can a machine be cute?

Absolutely no photos allowed inside the museum, so I can’t share the exquisite collection at all. It’s a fairly small, single gallery exhibition, but every one of the items in there is breathtaking. We were in awe of the fine gold wire band from Western Asia, so beautifully crafted between the 8th to 6th century BC. Was it knitted? Woven? Neither - it was made from the finest of gold links, so tiny that even with a magnifying glass it was impossible to work it out. It’s shown in the sixth picture of this page For an insight to other exhibits, take a while to work through the website. It will soon be clear why we were so glad we’d made it here!

The fifth picture of this page was my favourite item in the special exhibition, currently showing. Filled with joy, colour and exuberance, the technical aspects of this small braid were astounding. Again, it’s so incredibly old. Remarkable.

Filled with inspiration and with heads buzzing from the things we’d seen in the last couple of hours, we set off back to Luzern. What had made the gallery special, we both agreed, were the people. Once again, their generosity and charm had made our visit so much more pleasant. One had brought over an English guidebook which she felt would explain more of the technical details, another did some research when he couldn’t answer one of my questions about silk weaving techniques and returned with the answer some time later. He also brought over some additional information about the special exhibition and shared his love of the gallery and the contents. For most of the time, we’d had the place to ourselves - just three docents were on duty - and the peace and quiet allowed us to savour every one of those exhibits fully. My notebook is full of scribbles!

Just one small hold up on the way back; a level crossing!

We had enjoyed such a super day, filled with glorious landscapes, delightful people and of course, that amazing exhibition. Oh, and don’t forget the cheese!