Yes, once again we head back in time, but this time accompanied by four guests: SoulSwister, SweetSwissTeen, SwissSis, and of course, All American Boy, who will give their perspectives on one of the most Swiss of traditions: Désalpe or as our guest bloggers appropriately call it, "The Cow Festival." Unfortunately, CW was in Holland for the christening of one of our new drillships and missed this one, but plans to be there next year (with boots on!)
A bit of background--in the spring, farmers take their cows up to the lush mountainsides to graze for the summer. But it's too cold to leave them up there for the whole winter. So in the fall, they bring them back down into the villages and the meadows at lower elevations. We now regularly hear cowbells (yes, they seem to wear them all the time) from the cows in two meadows near our house. They weren't there when we arrived, so we can only assume the cows have come home.
And now for the guest impressions. CW wonders if you'll notice any themes?
When we went to the cow festival I was not expecting so much cow poop. There were landmines everywhere!!!!! The Désalpe [cow festival] was very crowded so we had a hard time getting around the land mines. We got there just in time for a parade of cows to go by. The cows were wearing large cowbells and HUGE flower headdresses. They were very noisy. There were people marching behind the cows too. I think that is pretty goofy [landmines].
They had good food there, too. There was a sausage that was very good. They grilled the bun, and the sausage was so long that it stuck out both sides of the bun! We decided to go home after about 2 hours. During that time we saw 2 or 3 cow marches, played in their playground, heard some traditional Swiss music and all and all had a good time.
SweetSwissTeen signing out!
The Désalpe
By:
SwissSis
:)
The Désalpe is an event when all the cows come down the mountain for the winter. To get there, we had to get up at 7:00. Getting up at 7:00 is not my idea of fun. :{
The cows had huge bells around their necks so it was really loud when they came down. But it gets quieter, because the dogs go on parade next! They pull little decorated carts. After that, more loud, more landmine dropping, stinky cows rolled through the village. :{
The village had a cool playground. There was a zip-line, and a ice cream cone shaped merry- go-round. It was really cool. :)Despite the landmine-dropping, loud, smelly cows, it was fun. The drive home was long and everyone was tired. Even though it was still morning. ;)
Signed,
SwissSis
Désalpe Journey
By
AllAmericanBoy
Basically the Désalpe is a festival where all the cows come down the mountain for the winter. When the cows came through there was a LOT of land mines I could not take five steps without stepping on one. Anyway, it was snack time so we found a stand that sells sausage dogs. The sausage was longer than a frying pan! We also found a park with a Zip Line and one of those spinny carrousels--only much bigger and it was in the air!
Once we finished playing there was a band of trumpeters. The trumpets were as long as cars. We headed back to the car and everybody was very tired even though it was still morning.Signed,
AllAmericanBoyI'm Going to Drive Where??? For What???
by SoulSwisster
Perhaps it was the adventurer-seeker in me, or my inner-Nascar driver, but when CW told me that the Désalpe Festival was upon us I just knew that I HAD to drive all of the switchbacks up the Jura Mountains to get to a festival where the honored guests were a bunch of bovines. Mooo-valous!!
CW was out of town, it was the end of our first full week here and the festival only comes around once a year. What was a SoulSwisster to do? Strap on her boots, get the kids up at 6:30 a.m on a Saturday, and hop in the car...to drive, but where?
The festival we attended was held in St. Cergue, which is a small ski town at the top of the Jura Mountains that divide Switzerland and France. The drive is only about 20 minutes on the main road. Easy enough! But this is Switzerland, and nothing is ever easy. And so what we discovered at about 6:45 a.m was that the main road was closed so that the 'udderly' honored guests could come down to the villages along the way. After a very nice French-speaking lady who was walking along the road gestured and pointed enough, we finally got the idea that we were going to have to take the 'back roads'. About 90 minutes later, after we crept up the switch-backs (my inner-Nascar driver failed me), we arrived at our destination with another 1000 people.
Parking is a cow-tastraphe in Switzerland. Attempting to park in a cow pasture was my next challenge. Thankfully, the ever-so-helpful, non-English speaking teenagers were guiding the cars into sardine-sized spaces. I think they forgot that, at some point, each car would want to leave and would need an exit path. I figured that was something we would worry about later, so we jumped out of the car and prepared ourselves to go see some cows. We've just moved from Houston, you know. Don't know what cows look like. 
As we wandered through the fields surrounding the village we followed the crowd toward the center and arrived just in time to hear an un-mooo-stakable sound. Cow bells...and cows. Men and boys dressed in traditional Swiss apparel were herding a large group of costumed cows through the village. No kidding! These cows were decked out as if they were advertising for Chiquita bananas. They wore large, colorful headdresses of flowers on their heads or around their necks. Many wore enormous bells that made a commotion that could rival a Cowboys/Eagles football crowd. 
As the first herd meandered toward their grassy meadow, Dash caught a glimpse of a tent full of cow bells for sale. The bells turned out to be quite popular as artistic, collector's items. They ranged in size from as tiny as your thumb to even larger than a cow's own head. AllAmericanBoy could not control his button-pushing fingers when he discovered that every bell had a 'dinger' that just begged to be 'donged'. As if we hadn't just 'herd' enough noise! The owner of the bells kindly posed with AAB and we left before AAB could ask to buy one. Thank goodness!
Dodging land mines left by the earlier herd we walked through the main street to visit the tents that were selling their wares. Fresh fruit compotes, bells, local walnuts, breads, bells, pastries, Churros??, more bells and sausages. The smell of the grilled sausage reminded us all that we had skimped on breakfast so we quickly huddled and consulted our limited French vocabularies. How do you say 'one'? How do you say 'plain'? Is it gracias or s'il vous plait? Eventually, we figured out how to crudely order a sausage dog, counted out our money like Kindergarteners and went on our merry way.We could hear the second herd approaching and quickly stepped to the side of the road. These cows went by, much like the first herd, leaving a trail behind them. What surprised us all was that there was a group of men and women walking in a group with alps horns directly behind the cows. Happily waving, holding their horns, wearing beautiful, traditional apparel and completely oblivious to the 'stuff' they were trudging through. The kids (and I) were completely grossed out. Spying a playground we headed over for a break.
Playgrounds in each village are very well-maintained and wonderfully designed. This one was no different. The kids zip-lined, spun around, swang and ran to their heart's content. They didn't even notice that a few herds went by while we were there. Or if they did, like me, they didn't say anything. After all, a cow's a cow. We had already seen several dozen.
We strolled through the rest of the festival listening to the alps horns music, acapella singers, and visiting with the dog parade participants who had now been loosed from their carts and were enjoying lots of attention from the visitors. It was 10:00 a.m. and we had enjoyed ourselves but, were now ready to leave. On our way out of town we found a crepe maker who was serving up crepes avec sucre or Nutella. That's right! Pancakes with sugar or Hazelnut chocolate. Can't beat that so we helped ourselves and decided to see if we could free our car from the gridlock.
Upon arriving at our 40 square foot allotted parking spot in the field we were delighted to find that the car directly in front of us had also had enough and left their space vacant. This allowed us to leave and head down the mountain. The drive down was beautiful and the fall colors were stunning. It was insightful to hear the kids remark at the many colors of leaves they had never seen before. As we descended the mountain, the fog set in and we drove along a densely fogged area. Motorcycles (and bicyclists, for that matter) were zipping along and passing me. Did I mention that it was foggy and we were on mountain switchbacks? At long last we made it down the mountain, back to our cozy home and relished the quiet sounds of our village. Wait, what was that sound? The cows followed us home. Yes, there are two pastures of cows within 2--5 minutes walk from our house. They are all wearing cowbells. The hills are alive with the sounds of moooo-sic!!!
And there you have it folks! While it might sound "cheesy" (not that we'd want to "milk" it!), this is one festival you can't miss!
