Swiss Cow Parade: A unique autumnal Alpine festival
What’s that one mountainous country that’s also famous for its chocolates and cheese, the name of which gets you excited by the minute? Switzerland, of course! After all, most of us have grown up romanticising the place, be it in movies, books, calendars and more recently, wallpapers.
Strangely, most pictures of Switzerland have Alpine slopes filled with dotted cows happily munching on grasses. Turns out, the pictures that we hardly get to see are that of the same slopes covered in snow and skiers. That makes us wonder, where do the cows go? Well, they are ceremoniously sent downward. In fact, there’s a festival surrounding this custom. It’s called Swiss Cow Parade.
The backstory
For long, the Swiss, along with their neighbours, the Austrians, have taken advantage of their Alpine landscape. How? By taking their cattle up the mountains during summer season to graze on season’s fresh grasses and herbs. After all, the warmer days are extremely short- lived in these places. So, in May or June when the cowboys and farmers send their cows uphill, they too join them for the next few months. Now, when they will return depends primarily on the weather. If it’s a rainy summer and the alpine grass begins to rot away, they descend early around the August-end. However, if the season remains majorly dry, they do so much late, around mid-October.
Swiss Cow Parade: A bird’s eye view
Now, here’s where it gets interesting. As soon as they get ready to send the cattle back down, they do so in the form of a parade, often festooned with flowers. This procession is carefully choreographed as the cattle ambles downwards to the sounds of cowbells, French horns and Alpine yodelling while onlookers cheer. In fact, every year a quarter million of cattle from 7000 different locations participate in this festival.
This autumnal celebration usually has goats beginning the parade led by goat boys and watched by goat girls, followed by the guests of honour, the herd of dairy cows who wear special flower crowns to symbolise their prestigious position. In fact, there are two stars of the event: The dairy queen and king who don a herbal headdress, red ribbons and gigantic cowbells at their collar. The farmers and herdsmen also feature traditional costumes and join the cattle parade.
Wondering why dairy cows are deemed as priced possessions? Because they are central to a traditional Swiss way of living that can be traced centuries back, not to forget they give the best kind of milk that in turn produce world’s best chocolates and cheese. So, it’s as if, the Swiss Cow Parade is an opportunity for the Swiss to shower the cows (also cattle) with honour and appreciation for serving them for generations.
The best cow parades
Cow Parades in Switzerland vary from location to location and have their own unique celebrations and traditions. For instance, in a canton called St. Gallen, the main attraction is on how the cowboys dress. They are clad in shirts and caps having flower embroidery, while their cows are florally festooned and often carry wooden placards that reads how St. Gallen stands out from other Swiss places. At the end of the parade, the town of St. Gallen rejoices as their open market offers free food and drink for all.
Similarly, in the town of Graubünden, the cowboys are extremely meticulous about their dresses. While they wear bright blue shirts, black felt hats with flowers, and yellow leather pants. The focus is mainly given on the headdress of dairy cows that has to have four main ingredients: pine branches, pine cones, sunflowers and Alpine wildflowers. What’s more interesting is that it’s the only town that celebrates the festival for an entire weekend. Other customs include, eating at the food market or Alpspektakel, spending time at a petting zoo, singing family chorus in public and cattle shearing.
Perhaps the most popular cow parade happens in the Swiss capital Bern where instead of autumn and the cattle coming down, people celebrate the summer ascent. On a particular weekend day in June, as many as 500 dairy cows are guided in a single line to climb up the mountain nearby. People from all over the world arrive to see this spectacle from cable cars since 5am. It’s a time when cowboys show off how ready their cows are really for the season’s grazing.