Switzerland Food & Chocolate Tour Package

Morning: Twenty minutes down the lake shore to Kilchberg, where Lindt has made chocolate since 1899. Rail included.

Lindt Home of Chocolate: The nine-metre fountain in the atrium, the making-of exhibition from bean to bar, and a tasting area at the end with no limit on what you try. Entry included.

The workshop: Forty minutes in an apron and a Lindt Maitre hat, tempering and filling your own bar and choosing what goes on it. You take it home. Included - and it is the reason this day is here rather than a quick visit.

Afternoon: Back into Zurich, or stay on the Kilchberg lake promenade, which is quieter than anything on the city side.

Morning, early: About two hours east to Appenzell, then on to Stein. It is the one early start of the trip, and there is a reason for it below.

Appenzeller Show Dairy: A working dairy with a glass wall, where you watch a wheel being made and turned, and the herb brine recipe stays a secret even to the people selling it. Entry included.

The shop: The dairy sells the quarter, half and three-quarter matured wheels side by side, which is the only place you will taste the difference properly. Buying is yours - the entry is ours.

Afternoon: Appenzell village, where the house fronts are painted and the main street looks like a set. Free to walk, and the local bakeries sell Appenzeller Biberli.

Morning: An hour to Bern, bags with you. The station opens straight onto six kilometres of covered arcades, which is where the food shops are.

The market: Munsterplatz under the cathedral, with the Barenplatz stalls a few minutes away - Emmental and Gruyere cheeses by the wedge, Bernese sausage, and the alpine honey nobody exports. Market days are specific, so we time your Bern stop to one.

Afternoon: An hour on to Lucerne and check in. The evening is yours - the old town is a ten-minute walk and no dinner is included on any night of this package.

Morning: Ten minutes out to Root for Aeschbach Chocolate World - a working family chocolatier rather than a corporation, so the scale is different from Lindt. Rail included.

Your second bar: The ticket we book includes making and pouring your own, which is a different process from the Lindt workshop - there you fill a mould, here you work with the flow. Included.

Afternoon: Back in Lucerne for the riverside market along the Reuss if your day lines up with it, and the old-town cheese and charcuterie shops behind Kornmarkt either way. Both free to browse.

Late afternoon: A cheese and wine tasting - four Swiss cheeses against four Swiss wines, which almost nobody from India has tried together. Swiss wine is barely exported because the country drinks nearly all of it. Included.

Breakfast: At the hotel - the fifth and last one.

Rail: Lucerne to Zurich main station, about an hour, then ten minutes to the airport, arriving directly under the terminal.

Timing: Allow four hours from the hotel. Trains on the Lucerne leg are roughly hourly, so there is one to catch comfortably either side of your target.

Last buy: Chocolate keeps, cheese does not travel well in a cabin bag, and Swiss customs rules on dairy into India are worth checking before you load up. Buy the chocolate, photograph the cheese.