On Saturday morning we decided to visit Maison Cailler in Broc near Gruyères. On their website, it said "Enjoy an amazing multi-sensory experience at the Maison Cailler chocolate attraction." We certainly did !
We wanted to get there early and managed to arrive exactly at 10.00 when the doors open. We found the disabled parking spaces just beyond the main building with the main parking situated opposite.
We stepped through the door to be greeted by the tantalising smell of chocolate and gift shop laden with every kind of choccie treat imaginable is right in front of the main doors so it gave us a great appetite for the tour ahead!
Tickets cost CHF 12.- and you are assigned a small group to follow the tour. It’s the same system in Nest where the visits are staggered and you follow the route through a series of doors leading to different themed rooms telling a different part of the history of chocolate.
I really love this layout as the rooms are so atmospheric, a bit like mini theatres and you are really immersed in what’s happening around you. Jude and Alba were really excited and even Elio seemed to enjoy himself and broke into random giggles during the tour.
At the end there is an space where you use a little hand held interactive audio device which you hold to scanners located around the room to learn more about the displays. Following that there is an area where you can taste some of the raw components of the chocolate before being able to see a small quantity being made and (most importantly) taste some of the final product!
It’s not often we find a museum that Elio enjoys but we really hit the jackpot here and he was in his element in the chocolate tasting department, grabbing my hands to get the chocolate into his mouth as fast as possible :-).
Having finished the visit we went to play in the garden area which is fun with various things for the children to climb on. They also had a treasure hunt set up which was a nice touch on a warm day. There is also a cafe which provides a peaceful place to pause before or after your visit.
We spent a great morning here and it was really wonderful for us to see Elio enjoying himself. I imagine it would get quite busy later in the day and thus I expect the waiting time to start the tour might be a bit long.
Information
Parking : Yes
Toilets : Yes
Baby Change Facilities : Yes
Accessibility : Yes suitable for pushchairs
Extra : Clothes Lockers & Cell phone charging stations
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