Have you heard about the cow festivals in the Alps? I hadn’t either… until I went to one. I had so much fun and then I went to another!
Every year at the end of Summer, the sound of bells can be heard ringing through little Alpine villages of Germany, Switzerland and Austria. What does this mean? The cow herds are descending from their Summer pastures to their Winter pastures.
The entire village joins in on the celebration and is decorated – the people wear their traditional folk dress and the cows are dressed up too! They wear special headdresses!
The farmers lead their herd down the hill. It’s really funny watching the cows… they follow one after the other in a line, most of the time.
Except when they see green grass, then the line gets broken and they try to make their way to the grassy fields. The farmers then use their sticks and wack them back into line! 
In addition to costumes, there is traditional Schuhplatteln dancing, Alphorn blowing and music.
The locals wear their traditional costumes. Love the little girl being pulled in the goat cart. Sorry I blurred their faces as I don’t know European law about faces in pictures.
Speaking of goats, there are often little goat herds in the festival too! They don’t get to wear crowns like the cows, but they all have little bells on them. This little girl below was funny – she looked behind at her goat the entire time and kept her tight on her leash… perhaps she’s been known to eat through a rope or two?
This ceremonial cattle drive is called the Almabtrieb, however in the Allgäu it is called the Viehscheid.
The cows wear traditional “Fuikl”, which are special crowns worn only for the Almabtrieb.
The farmers create the crowns them selves, often from the fir and spruce branches and wildflowers.
The cow with the biggest and prettiest crown of each herd is the Kranzrind, “The Crown Cow” and has a special job as it is the lead cow and leads the rest of the cows home. Below, in between the two people you can see the “Crown Cow” – it has the biggest bell and the biggest crown.
The loud bells around the necks of the cows are designed to protect them from “hostile demons” as they descend into the valley.
There are two types of cowbells – “Glocken” which are cast and “Schellen” which are from plate metal.
The locals really do party ’til the cows come home. Hmm… wonder if this is where the saying originates?
The festival pictures above are from two separate festivals in different years – one was in Switzerland and one was in Austria.
Source for Article information is from Bavaria.by.
Here are some websites that list the dates they occur:
Viehscheid and Almabtrieb in Bavaria
Almabtriebe and Viehscheidtermine in Bavaria, Allgäu, Tirol, Austria, and Switzerland
I do hope you enjoyed reading about the cow festivals in the Alps! We liked going to these over going to the Oktoberfest. I know many people travel to Germany for the Oktoberfest… perhaps you’ll find time to make it to one of these festivals!
This is fun to know about! I love seeing special festivals, and bovines are dear to my heart. Thanks for posting this Angelina.
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Aren’t they so fun! I’m glad you enjoyed the post
Beautiful!
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I’m glad you enjoyed it!
Angelina,
What fun festivals to attend! Once when I was traveling as a chaperone to high school students to Europe, we stumbled upon a similar festival in a small Alpine town. Since all of the students on the bus were from the same school, chaperoned by the same group of teachers, we were able to have our tour guide change our plans for the day. We all loved watching the parade with the cows and townspeople dressed up in their traditional costumes. Your post brought back a good memory.
Judith
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Oh how fun is that!?! So special you could change your itinerary to enjoy the festival! Thank you for sharing your memory with me!
This was such a fun post! We visited Bavaria a couple of years ago – I’d gladly go back to Germany, it was so beautiful!
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I’m glad you enjoyed it! I love going to Germany… the Alps and the Black Forest are so pretty!
These photos are so sweet! I hope the cows don’t mind being adorned with flowers…I don’t think they do. 🙂
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I don’t think they seemed to mind… they didn’t seem scared either despite parading through a crowd. I think they probably didn’t like the big giant bells, but that’s only a guess… they all wear little bells when they are grazing in the fields normally over there so maybe its no big deal to them.
Really enjoyed this post! It’s so colorful and informative, now I Want to go there.
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I’m glad you enjoyed the post!!
wow! i would have loved to have seen this when we were in the austrian alps a few years ago. great photos!
b
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I hadn’t heard of it the first few times I went… then I stumbled on a picture once and did some research. Next thing I knew we were at the festival!
This looks so fun! We’ve been wanting to take a trip to Germany. I just told my husband that when we go, we need to go during the time of these festivals since it looks so fun!