Viehscheid aka Cows Coming Home

So, lucky me, my sister Rebekah came to visit!  Beck is my oldest sister, and she leads a very busy life with her five kiddos.  But with the help of her hubby and my mom, she was able to leave four of them behind for a week and come see me with 7 year old Ricky in tow. Don't ask me how Ricky got so lucky… maybe because he's Em's age and because he's a super easy kid.  It pays off sometimes!  

I had to show them the best of Germany of course, so what better way than to take them to an authentic German festival?  Viehscheid, or the Cows Coming Home festival, is something I've had my eye on for awhile.

These festivals take place in the autumn months in the mountain regions of Germany, Austria, and Switzerland.  Every spring the cows are taken from the valleys up to the alpine pastures where they benefit from the healthy vegetation…. they are looked after a team of herdsmen who do their daily milking and other tasks.  Then in the fall, when the weather turns cooler, the herdsmen bring them back to the valleys and they are sorted out to their owners.  To celebrate that there were no cattle injuries or losses, the leading cow is adorned with a wreath.   The cows wear huge cowbells and the racket these bells make is something else. 

Check out those bells!

 The Germans, who love any excuse to celebrate, gather together and eat, drink, listen to live oom-pah music, and just participate in general merry-making.  

Because what better excuse to have a beer at 9:30 a.m.?

We went to a town called Oberstdorf, right near the Austrian border.  Since the fest started at 8:30, we left at 6 a.m.!  I was worried that if we got there late, we would miss the parade of cows coming down the mountain.  It turns out we would have been just fine if we had showed up around 10 or 11.  There were about 1000 cows paraded through, but they did them in sections, not all at once… so even at noon they were still bringing cows down from the mountains.  

Ricky and Em, two peas in a pod

 When we first got there it was wet, rainy, and muddy.  Luckily, as the morning wore on the skies began to clear.

Trying to keep Jamesy dry

My sister's spirits were undeterred by the weather.  Wish I could say the same for the kiddos.

Nothing wrong with having a wurst at 9:30 either, right?

 As the weather improved, we made our way to a bridge where we had a great view of the valley and the cows coming down from the mountain

Is that Dwight's cousin, Mose? ;)

Little herdsmen… Too cute!

 Oh, and also this wonderful view… the beer filled herdsmen taking care of business… why wait in the bathroom line when you have mother nature?  I'm sorry, I couldn't resist ;)

We went up a hill to meet another group of cows coming down, and then we watched them parade through the village with all the people below to greet them.

The weather turned downright lovely as we were ready to go home

What I loved about this experience was that it felt like an authentic cultural experience… I didn't hear English spoken or see any other tourists.  I loved the way people dressed in their lederhosen and dirndls.  My goal was to have the kids dressed up too, but I didn't quite swing it. They were cute anyway!