CHEESE TOURS · AROUND THE WORLD
For people who plan trips around cheese.
Dutch wheels off a canal boat, Parmigiano straight from the dairy, a tasting in the cellars below Gruyeres, a board matched glass for glass with Bordeaux. Reviews of the cheese tours worth the trip, in the towns that take cheese seriously.
Worth the trip for the cheese alone
Three regions built on a cheese.
Some places you visit for the view. The Dutch canals, the dairies of Parma and the cellars below Gruyeres you visit for the cheese itself: the cruise tasting, the milk-to-wheel morning, the alpine cellar. These are the days travellers come home talking about.
Netherlands
Amsterdam
No country wears its cheese more proudly than the Netherlands, and Amsterdam is the way in. Taste young to aged Gouda at a canal-side counter, sail out on a cheese-and-wine cruise, or ride to the green-and-white windmills of the Zaanse Schans, where the wheels are still pressed and turned by hand. Edam and Gouda, the towns the cheeses are named after, sit just up the road.
- 1 Amsterdam Classic Saloon Boat Cruise with Drinks and Cheese
- 2 Amsterdam: Classic Boat Cruise with Optional Cheese & Wine
- 3 Amsterdam: Guided Zaanse Schans, Windmills & Cheese Tour
Italy
Parma
Parma is the home of the king of cheeses. A dairy visit here starts before breakfast, when the milk hits the copper vats and the curd is lifted by hand, and ends in the cathedral-quiet ageing room where thousands of gold Parmigiano-Reggiano wheels rest for years. You taste it straight off the round, with a slick of balsamic and a slice of Parma ham.
- 1 Tour Parmigiano Reggiano dairy and Parma ham
- 2 Guided group tour TastyBus: Parmesan Cheese and Parma Ham
- 3 Parma: Traditional Cheese Factory Visit with Tasting
Switzerland
Gruyeres
From Geneva the road climbs into the foothills to Gruyeres, where the cheese that melts into every fondue is made. A day here pairs the cheese cellars with the chocolate factory next door and the medieval village above, the alpine herds grazing in view. It is the most scenic cheese tasting in this whole catalogue, and one of the most booked.
- 1 Gruyères Tour from Geneva With Train, Chocolate and Cheese
- 2 From Geneva: Gruyères Tour with Cheese & Chocolate Factories
- 3 Geneva: Gruyères Tour with Chocolate, Cheese & Golden Train
If you only book one
The cheese tour more travellers rave about than any other.
Out of every cheese tour on the site, this is the one that sends people home telling everyone they know to book it.
The crowd-pleasers
The Most Popular Cheese Tours Right Now
Amsterdam cheese cruises, Parmigiano dairy mornings, Gruyeres day trips, Bordeaux cheese-and-wine boards. The bookings travellers are happiest they made.
Start with a town
The best cheese tours, town by town.
Amsterdam for the canal cheese cruise, Parma for the Parmigiano dairies, Geneva for the road up to Gruyeres. Pick the town you are headed to and we will show you the cheese tours worth booking there.
Where to go for the cheese
Three corners of the cheese map.
Start with the cheese you came for. Each of these is a region the site covers deeply, and a different kind of cheese day waiting at the end of it.
Amsterdam
Taste the cheese from a boat.
The most Amsterdam way to eat cheese is afloat: a slow cruise along the canals with a board of young to aged Gouda and a glass of wine in hand. Off the water, the road to the Zaanse Schans windmills ends at a working farm where the wheels are still pressed and turned by hand, and a guide pours and slices while you watch.
See the best Amsterdam cheese tours →Parma
Watch a wheel of Parmigiano made.
A Parma dairy tour starts at dawn, when the morning milk meets the copper vats and the curd is lifted out by hand. It moves through the brine baths to the ageing room, row on row of gold wheels resting for years, and finishes with a tasting straight off the round, with aged balsamic and a slice of Parma ham. Cheese at the source, the way it has been made for nine centuries.
See the best Parma cheese tours →The Swiss Alps
Cheese that is born above the treeline.
Switzerland makes its cheese where the herds graze in summer, then ages it in cool cellars below the villages. A day from Geneva, Lucerne or Interlaken takes you up to Gruyeres and the alpine dairies, where you watch the curd worked in great copper cauldrons and taste the wheels that melt into every fondue and raclette.
See the best Swiss cheese tours →Bordeaux
The cheese course is the point.
In Bordeaux the cheese is poured alongside, not after. A tasting here sets a flight of French cheeses against the reds and whites that were made to go with them, with a host who explains why a Comte sings next to one glass and an aged goat against another. It is the gentlest, most grown-up day on the site, and a fine introduction to French cheese.
- 1 Professional – Bordeaux Wine and Cheese Tasting with a walking tour
- 2 Tasting of 6 Bordeaux wines and pairing charcuterie & cheese
- 3 Bordeaux: Wine Masterclass with Cheese and Charcuterie Board
By appetite
How far into the cheese do you want to go?
A sit-down board and a glass in Bordeaux. A morning out among the wheels in Amsterdam. A full milk-to-wheel day at a Parma dairy. Pick the one that sounds like your kind of cheese day.
Ease in
Bordeaux, a board and a glass.A sit-down cheese-and-wine tasting at its own pace: a flight of regional cheeses, the wines that were made to go with them, and a host who explains why each pairing works. Everything you came to taste, nowhere you have to be.
Out among it
Amsterdam, wheel to wheel.Out onto the canals or the road to the Zaanse Schans, tasting young to aged Gouda at the counter and watching the wheels turned at a working farm. A local does the ordering and you eat the ones the day-trippers never reach.
All in
Parma, from milk to wheel.A full morning inside a Parmigiano-Reggiano dairy: the copper vats at dawn, the salt baths, the great gold wheels stacked to the ceiling in the ageing room, and a tasting straight off the round. Cheese at the source, start to finish.
Hunter Valley
Cheese and wine, the Australian way.
A couple of hours north of Sydney, the Hunter Valley pairs its cellar doors with farm-fresh cheese boards, chocolate and local gin. A day out here rolls the tasting room and the cheese counter into one, a designated driver doing the roads between estates so you can work your way from the sparkling to the aged cheddar without watching the clock.
See all 12 Hunter Valley cheese tours →By town
Pick a town and follow the cheese.
Amsterdam for the canal cheese cruise. Paris for the fromageries. Parma for the Parmigiano dairies. Geneva for the road to Gruyeres. Zurich for the fondue. Lucerne for the mountain dairies.
More towns
More towns worth a cheese detour.
Bordeaux for the cheese-and-wine, Krakow for the smoked mountain cheese, Sorrento for the buffalo mozzarella, the Hunter Valley for the cellar-door boards. The rest of the map, ready when you are.
A perfect cheese trip
Three days, three ways to eat cheese.
A dairy morning in Parma, an alpine afternoon above Gruyeres, a cheese-and-wine evening in Bordeaux. Strung together, the makings of one very good week.
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