If you wander down the valley where Ohio
557 cuts east and west through Holmes County, you’re probably heading for the quaint little
village of Charm,
Ohio.
No doubt someone has told you that it is the most
authentically Amish town in the region.
I wouldn’t argue with that assertion.
It’s probably the reason Charm is so popular, both with tourists and
locals.
I like it because it has not yet
become too commercialized.
But as quaint as it is, don’t be in too much of a hurry to
see Charm. On the way there, you’ll be
startled by the sudden appearance, close beside the road, of something more Alpine
Swiss than Ohio Amish – The Guggisberg Cheese factory and store. And next door to that is Guggis little ice
cream stand. Across the street is the
Guggisberg Swiss Chalet restaurant.
Farther up the road is the Guggisberg Inn. These are all nice establishments, but what I
recommend most is the cheese factory and store.
Here you’ll find the best Amish-made cheese in Holmes County,
so far as I am concerned, and of all the kinds of cheese they offer, I especially
like The Original Guggisberg Baby Swiss Cheese wheels. If you arrive before noon, you can stand at
the large windows and watch them make the cheese in giant stainless steel vats.
There are plenty of other Amish treats and snacks offered in
the store, but cheese made from the milk of local Amish dairy farmers is the
biggest attraction in that part of the valley.
Once you’ve had some of their award-winning Baby Swiss, you’ll always
want more.
Luckily they have a website (
www.guggisberg.com), and often their
cheese is available at other places around the country.
If you like cheese, I recommend that you buy Guggisberg
wherever you can.
But if you are
visiting Holmes County, consider Guggisberg’s to be one
of the ‘must see’ stores on your itinerary.
Just be careful, because the cheese shop closes early in the afternoon,
and if you wander over to the chalet restaurant thinking that you’ll buy your
cheese after dinner, you’ll find that the cheese store is closed.
They start early in the morning, you see, and
they close right at five o’clock.
Once
with friends we lingered over dinner too long, thinking that we would buy
cheese for the drive home, only to find the store closed.
I wasn’t too worried, because I knew we could
buy Guggisberg cheese wheels in Wooster
when we got home that evening, but it took a little bit of the fun out of it
for our friends.
If you can manage it,
buy your first Guggisberg wheel at the authentically Swiss-Amish establishment
where all of it is made.
It’ll taste
better because you’ll have the distinctly Alpine memory of where you bought it.
If you wander down the valley where Ohio
557 cuts east and west through Holmes County, you’re probably heading for the quaint little
village of Charm,
Ohio. No doubt someone has told you that it is the most
authentically Amish town in the region.
I wouldn’t argue with that assertion.
It’s probably the reason Charm is so popular, both with tourists and
locals. I like it because it has not yet
become too commercialized.