This weekend, I went to Switzerland for the Desalpe festival. In the summer, the cows go to the mountains to graze. In the fall, the farmers bring their cows down from the mountains to the winter pasture in the valley – the Desalpe festival celebrates this. I couldn’t understand what the announcer was saying because it was all in French, but it seemed like the farmers and their cows actually walk all the way from the mountains down to their farms (I’ll explain later why I think this). We were in Charmey in the Gruyeres region. It is a really small, quaint, perfect Swiss town on the French side.
This was one of the weekend trips that I have been planning for months. My roommate, another girl from our class (who is from Boulder!), and her mom who is not taking the class but is here for the adventure all decided to come along. We rented a car and drove the six hours on Friday night. We stayed in a hotel just outside of town and the beds and bathrooms were so fabulous compared to our accomodations in Agde. I never thought I’d be this happy to stay in a hotel.
On Saturday, we woke up and drove to a parking area where we discovered the beautiful church above and then took a bus to Charmey. The festival was packed. It was kind of like a parade, where every 15-45 minutes a new farmer would come through town with his cows and the people who worked on the farm. All of the farmers and staff were dressed in traditional clothing (including the kids) and the cows were decorated with giant bells and flowers. It was one of the coolest things I’ve ever seen and I have SO MANY pictures.
Some of the farmers also had their goats, a few horses, or dogs with them. I met the Bernese Mountain Dog below and he was very sweet – the breed is one of my favorites and is in the running for top 5 dogs that we might get (or some mixture with Bernese in it); they are named after the Bern region of Switzerland, so it was really cool to meet one there!
When we weren’t watching the cows, we were wandering around town – there were different artisan booths (kind of like a farmers market) and so many cheese booths. We sampled lots of Gruyeres cheese from different farmers and of course we bought some. There were makeshift bars on the sidewalks all over town and you could spot Swiss families drinking bottles of wine as early as 10am. The town was so cute – Switzerland is my favorite country so far and I would love to move there.
All of the little towns are nestled in the mountains. The geography is a combination of really tall, rocky peaks and shorter but steep green rolling hills (similar to the hills you’d see in Marin – North of SF). Everyone was extremely nice and spoke wonderful English. The houses were a combination of white plaster and this beautifully carved wood. All of the houses had bright orangey red geraniums in their flower boxes (and they all had flower boxes).
The only thing that was a little weird was the restaurants closed down early (8pm) on Saturday night. We think that may have just been because of the festival, though. That didn’t stop us from getting some Gruyere fondue and ice cream (Swiss chocolate) and both were delicious! It was also the perfect running weather and I got two runs in while we were there. On Saturday evening, I was running through the town that we were staying in and saw a trail the looked like it went through a park (and had a pedestrian sign next to it). I took the trail up a hill and when I got to the top, there were randomly 15 sheep grazing. Just casually eating some grass in the middle of this town. The towns also had cows and goats fenced in in their public greenspaces.
On the bus ride back to where we parked, we were stuck behind a farmer and his cows, still walking well past town. Luckily, the bus driver knew the backroads and took us up into the hills, navigating a giant bus through skinny, winding streets. When we came out on the main road, we were just behind the motorcycle escort for the farmer, but the police office let us go in front of them and the entire bus clapped (as you can imagine, cows are not very fast walkers).
So Switzerland is amazing and I can’t wait to go back when Andrew comes over! I see lots of hiking in our future.
More Croissants, Please! 