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Travel back in time with this Swiss festival marking summer's end
Travel back in time with this Swiss festival marking summer's end

South China Morning Post

time18-07-2025

  • Entertainment
  • South China Morning Post

Travel back in time with this Swiss festival marking summer's end

We hear them before we see them, the hollow clang of bells ringing out over the hills above the village. Advertisement As the sound draws nearer, a buzz runs through the crowd. Onlookers spread out along the edge of the steep, winding road, the main thoroughfare in the Swiss Alpine village of Seewis im Prättigau, to claim a vantage point. When they turn a sharp corner and emerge from behind a wooden-shuttered house, we catch our first glimpse of the glossy, mushroom-coloured herd, which is being led down the narrow road by a cow crowned with green pine cuttings, a bright yellow dahlia and a cluster of edelweiss. The fur-lined leather strap of the huge bell around her neck is stitched with bright flowers. Cows lined up to be judged in various categories, including for the title of Alp Queen, at the Prättigauer Alp Spektakel, in the Swiss Alpine village of Seewis im Prättigau. Photo: Victoria Burrows Mountain blooms also adorn the chest of her cowherd, a young woman in a bright blue embroidered shirt, a corsage of pretty flowers pinned to her breast. Her hair is braided and captured in a loose bun. As with the other two cowherds, young men in matching blue embroidered shirts, she holds a rough-hewn crook with which to gently guide her bovine charges. Flocks of sheep festooned in small brass bells and brown goats in red neckerchiefs tinkle past. A band provides harmony above the livestock percussion: three white-haired musicians playing a concertina, a flute and a double bass all crammed, along with the coachman, into an open-topped carriage pulled by two horses. The fox-coloured horses, with ivory manes and tails, are Haflingers, a sturdy and gentle-natured breed that originated in the Alps less than 200 years ago. Advertisement More herds follow, one led by a cow with a halo of red, yellow and white chrysanthemums above her head. Her halter is wrapped in moss and studded with flowers, and a wooden sign at her forehead reads: 'Heimat ist dort wo die Berge sind' ('Home is where the mountains are').

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