3rd last day-Appenzell

A drive to Appenzeller's cheese factory for a tour and movie about the wonderful area and cows and how cheese is made, followed by a visit to the cheese store was the first activity of the day. The majority of the day was spent in the town of Appenzell, shopping and having lunch. Carol and I saw two farm families' time-honored procession through the town with their cows (one also had sheep or goats) when they bring their heards down from the summer pastures up on the mountains to the winter grazing down below. Then we went for a walk-about and saw another parade forming high up in the mountains. The cows come right through the center of town, past the shops (think wild west) with the family in their traditional dress costumes hearding them along. This has been the culture for hundreds of years and then the residents have a festival the following day. Then--the Maestrani chocolate factory in Flawil!  A special tour with samples and a movie about where it comes from and how it's made preceeded the visit to the company store where we could purchase at very low rates.  I tried and purchased Chili Chocolate--and a whole lot more.