We went to Bulle in La Gruyère region on Sunday. We walked around Bulle for a couple hours before we decided we had time to sneak in a visit to Charmey.
Bulle is a beautiful and well preserved city.
Some of Bulle’s main attractions (according to one of my favorite websites MySwitzerland.com) are:
- Gruyère Museum - the Musée Gruérien exhibits the region’s history, art and traditions.
- Old town – rebuilt on a grid system after the great fire of 1805 with many bourgeois houses from the era.
- Chocolate factory at Broc – the art of chocolate making can be watched at the Cailler factory (with outlet shop). (Edit: There is also a Nestlé factory located in Broc. Click here to watch footage of the Nestlé chocolate factory production line.)
- Gorges de la Jogne – a footpath leads from Broc through the narrow gorge to the Lac de Montsalvens.
- Lac de Gruyère – idyllic reservoir with the island Ile d’Ogoz with wedding chapel. Access by boat only.
Above is my first ’shot’ of Bulle. We had just walked out of the train station and crossed the road when I decide to take a photo of the bull in the roundabout. That’s the train station behind the bull.
Bulle Castle
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The park just under Bulle castle has a maze for children to get ‘lost’ in. My kids had a great time darting in and out of their secret passages. There were slides for the kids to climb up out of one part of the maze and slide down into another. OK. I admit I played too. You would have if you were there!
Vilay with our son in the maze.
Boy Blue is still a little too young to get the concept of a maze but he liked walking through it with his Papa all the same. His favorite part was the slides of course.
A trash for dog owners to clean up after their pets. The bags are even provided for free. I have seen these in France as well.
I always have to snicker at the silly signs put up to remind dog owners to clean up after their dogs. At least it is done with humor.
One of Bulle Castle’s towers.
Our two youngest daughters still think that a real princess lives inside. They were watching for her to peak out of the windows. However, the princess must having been taking a nap waiting for her true love’s kiss.
Bulle Castle is nice but I can’t wait to get back to this area to visit the Castle of Gruyères. We went past it in the bus to Charmey and it was impressive sitting on top of a mont. We were a little disappointed that we didn’t know about it because we would have went to visit it rather than Charmey. In the end, I am happy to have seen Charmey which was enjoyable for the kids (they ran a lot) and relaxing for us.
One of the main roads in the center is getting completely redone. It will be nice to go back and see it finished. You can’t miss the mountains in the background of this picture. In fact, you can see the mountains pretty much the entire time you walk around Bulle.
See how calm it is here? It was on a Sunday but I read online that Bulle is known to be a relaxing city.
This fountain was so pretty. Walking through Bulle made me miss Alsace. I miss all the flowers you find all through the Alsace region of France.
The calf shown above was adorable. She kept coming up to us and then would back away. I think she wanted us to pet her but her fear wouldn’t let us touch her. Her cow bell is too cute.
In this photo, I wanted to show that the cow above and her friends were grazing right in the city of Bulle. The city surrounds their pasture. It is a pleasure to find animals kept inside Swiss cities.
I would highly recommend visiting this area of Switzerland. There is much history to be discovered with stunning views of the pre-Alps. If you like to hike there are several good trails all over this area waiting to be explored.
In our one day there I saw that it would be easy to spend a week traveling, visiting and hiking through and from one city to another.
Link to interesting hiking trails in La Gruyère region.
To see the other photos I took of Bulle, Switzerland on flickr click here.
To view to the photos as a flickr slide show which I recommend click here.
You are killing me with all of these super cool visits that I wanted to do while I was there in March. OF course, 10 days only allows for so much! :) I love your pics as always.. And I’ve got that funny dog photo too!
Bulle is so cool!
And here I thought Gruyere was just a good topping for French Onion soup :)
How beautiful it is!
Expatraveler,
It is hard to fit everything into 10 days. I really liked Bulle. We are looking forward to showing our oldest daughter this area when she comes in July.
Michelle,
I am dreaming of French Onion soup with Gruyère cheese now! We eat this cheese on everything since moving to Switzerland. It is addictive.
Beautiful. I love the castle…I could imagine a princess living there too :)
Caffienated Cowgirl,
We need to take them on a tour so they can see inside a real castle. We took my oldest in Alsace and she loved it. I think that will be one of our things to do this summer when our family is all together again.