Saturday 22 September - Part 2 - Walking of the Cows at Blonay

On the train to Blonay we fell into conversation with an American working with Nestle at Vevey. He told us there would be cows in a street procession at the next station south of the Blonay station. He had no idea how many cows or when. We decided to stop off at this station on our way back and caught the entire procession. I think the video explains it well. It is not exactly in the same league as the running of the bulls in Pamplona but much safer and a lot of fun. This is a tradition in many parts of Switzerland which has been carried on for centuries. It is known as Desalpes and marks the bringing down of cattle from the high pastures at the end of summer.

What luck. we saw everything in the half an hour between one train and the next.

After the procession the cows were happily let loose to graze in a field.