Today the temperature dropped to a very fresh 12 degrees… How delightful… Thankful I brought my puffer jacket with me, despite being mocked by everyone for it.
Today David and his lovely wife took us to Appenzell.
Appenzell is a small, traditional Swiss village in the northeast of Switzerland, where they even speak their own dialect of Alemannic Swiss German. Swiss German alone sounds so different to regular German, never mind another dialect.
Here we looked through the museum, which gave us a great insight into traditional costumes, local customs and beliefs, the history of folk art, and how hand embroidery was a huge industry there. This is a village full of creative and crafty people apparently. While in the museum we suddenly heard the sounds of cow bells, only to look out the window and see some goats and cows being herded up the main street.
Intrigued, it was explained to us about the descents from the alpine pastures. The Alpine cattle drives are a big deal, and happen at the beginning and the end of winter. The ascent and descent take the same form:
- Right at the front of the procession are Appenzeller goats controlled by children.
- They are followed by the chief alpine herdsman wearing a traditional festive costume and carrying a milking pail, and three cows with bells (the farmers three best looking ones).
- The bells are all in tune with each other and the four farmers who follow immediately after them sing along in tune with the bells.
Fun Fact: The three harmonised bells around the necks of the cattle are the only instruments in the world to be played by cows.
They are followed by the rest of the herd. At the end of the procession is the proud owner of the herd accompanied by his faithful Appenzell mountain dog, who makes sure no animal leaves the herd.
The museum closed for an hour for lunch, so while it was closed we went for a walk around the town and got to watch the next group of cattle come through. We sat and had hot drinks next to the town square and learnt that Appenzell still has an open-air parliament.
Fun Fact: In Appenzell any political matters (and elections) are still dealt with by a show of hands! Around 3000 voters come together on the last Sunday of April, in the big town square, and hands are counted to determine decisions.
Something yummy to snack on
From Appenzell we started heading back towards home, but stopped on the way at a cheese factory in Stein. We got to taste several flavours of Appenzell cheese, and went on a little tour to see how its made and why its special.
Fun Fact: In Switzerland the cow to people ratio is about 1:5 and every cow is entered into a register after it is born with a name and number. Popular names for calves are Bella, Nora, Fiona and Nina. Appenzeller cows are very well looked after and often produce more milk than an average dairy cow.
Carrying on towards home, we stopped in at a chocolate factory.
Switzerland makes good chocolate.
It was almost closing time so we had to do a very speedy tour. The walkway goes over the top of the factory, so it was very cool being able to look down and see production in action. Again, we got to taste all the chocolate and weren’t unhappy about it.
Dinner was quite late and we finally booked our flight to Milan for tomorrow. I have wanted to go to Italy for the longest time, so excited it’s finally happening!
KJ xx