We are still experiencing a bit of jet lag so we didn’t get started too early today. The weather this morning started off with a mix of sun and clouds but got more and more overcast and eventually it started raining. 🌧
We took the scenic route to Brunnen. It would have been a short 15 minute ride if we had taken the direct route, but our circuitous route took us about an hour through the beautiful Swiss countryside. Here’s a map showing the two towns.
We had lunch at a small restaurant beside the lake. Then we walked a quarter of a mile to the Swiss Knife Valley Museum, which wasn’t much of a museum, it was really just a Victorinox store showing a movie or two and displaying knives, past and present. We watched a couple of the videos, one about the area and one about how they make the Swiss Army knives. Interestingly there is a lot of labor in stacking and cleaning the knives and it’s all done in Switzerland, using expensive Swiss labor. Rick bought two knives, one for sailing and the other one similar to a small pocket knife he inherited from his dad. Here is a picture from the store so you can see how many Swiss Army knife models they have.
Here are some pictures of Brunnen.
We drove by Rick’s favorite kirsch manufacturer and discovered they were closed. We learned later that the company had been purchased and it would no longer be making kirsch. This area is famous for growing cherries (kirsch is made from fermented cherry stems and pits) and Rick remembered that there was another kirsch manufacturer in the area. So we looked it up and found Etter, the other major kirsch manufacturer.
The Etter showroom was open so we went there for a tasting (actually Rick tasted and I watched). We ended up with two pretty special bottles of kirsch. Turns out, not surprisingly, that the weather each year has a significant impact on the flavor. Everything came together in 2006 and it was very obvious.
Turns out Etter distills a number of different fruits, pears, plums, quince and cherries. We bought a sampler pack so we could try a little of each.
We had planned to go to the caves in Baar, http://www.hoellgrotten.ch/en_index.php, but it was getting late, so we decide to head back to the apartment.
At our “house” two guys who live here and their friend were trying launch a dinghy with a large motor. Rick went out in the rain to help them. They thanked him with a beer and he spent a little time communing with the locals.
By evening it got quite windy. We had whitecaps on the lake and it even snowed a little. Nice to be watching the action unfold from our warm little house!