cows and cheese, 2015 edition.

First, a quick announcement: Mike's rugby team won their (exciting, and grinding--there were something like 27 scrums!) match on Sunday, and Mike was Man of the Match!! Wooooo! As I'm a bit of an idiot, I completely failed to get any photos of him receiving his hard-earned and well-deserved praise, but at least you can see him in game mode here (photo 35 is the best one). Well done, RUZ, and WAY TO GO, MIKE! WOOOO! ROCK AND ROLL!

Well. This post took far longer to put together than it should have, and therefore I'm still two adventures behind. Suffice it to say that this, then, is a three-fer featuring the 2015 editions of both our somewhat-annual fall trip to the Piedmont, as well as the cows coming home. Brace yourselves.

First up, the Alpabzug in Mels. Sadly, last year, we were unable to attend any of the parties thrown for the cows returning from their summer holidays in the Alps, but vowed to make up for it this year, and so off we went on the motorcycle, on a perfect and sunny day in late September. Mels turned out to be a wee little village with a whole heap of cows (and a handful of goats) coming into town from at least three different directions, all of whom took these intricate routes around the center. It was a bit chaotic, from a first-time viewer standpoint, but genuinely impressive.

Our first sighting. I love the traditional dress the herders wear to parade through the city.

I'm pretty sure I could rock one of those flowery tunics.

Mels: very, very pretty, and just across the highway from Sargans, which has a castle. This country is just ridiculous, scenery-wise.

Second sighting, near the fountain, and this is the only good shot I managed to get of the goats. The girl there is doing a QEII wave to the crowd and having a great time of it.

When this group of cows came into the square, they happened to notice the fountain in the middle and went in for a drink...

...which caused things to back up a wee bit. So many thirsty cows.

This one wandered over towards us to say hi. These are by far the fanciest headdresses I've seen at an Alpabzug and I love them.

Between parades, we took a short break to eat some Käseschnitte (that's cheese toast, to the layperson) and drink a little apple cider--all local products, of course--and to check out the town center. Should you need a giant fancy cowbell and strap, I know where you can get one for the bargain price of CHF 1500 (...yikes).

Table full of parade paraphernalia outside a beerhall.

The third little cluster we saw began with these ponies laden with what I can only assume are the tools of local industry...

...and then led to more fancy, fancy headdresses.

And a few simpler ones.

The last group that came through were the young'uns, who were considerably more unruly than the older cows, and who really wanted to explore the space a little bit.

And, because it just wouldn't be an Alpabzug without it, here's a video of the racket produced by all of those cowbells.*

The following weekend, we headed down to the Piedmont with a lovely group of friends to eat at Gemma's (always, always the absolute best!), to taste some wine, and to explore the Slow Food Cheese festival in Bra, which happens once every two years, and takes over the entire town center. It's spectacular. (In the interest of brevity, I'm giving this trip shorter shrift than it deserves. What a delicious and lovely weekend.)

This was our first time in Bra, and it was positively lovely, even with all of the tents filled with cheese-and-other-goodies packed into the center of town. (Literally. The entire center.)

Cheeses in the Great Cheese Hall! The name's no joke, either: the cheese counter in said hall was longer than my apartment building is wide, and brimming with cheeses from all over the place. Between five of us, we sampled sixteen different cheeses (mainly from Spain, Italy, and England), and IT WAS GLORIOUS. (Oddly enough, though, the cheeses that stole everyone's hearts were from the US.**)

Along the international cheese booths set up outside, we meandered past the Swiss booth, without which, of course, no cheese festival would be complete. (Naturally, we skipped out on the sampling here, but the cheeses were too pretty not to photograph.)

In all honesty, I have no idea whether I'd like any of these rather intriguing cheeses in the French booth, but I thought they were neat-looking. (Way more mushroomy than cheesy in aspect.)

Alongside all the cheese, our little group of five may have also shared the best pizza I've ever had (margherita, with just buffala mozzarella, tomato sauce, and basil); arancini (balls of fried, cheesy rice from Sicily) stuffed with ham and cheese, and one filled with a ragu sauce; an excellent cannolo; and a couple of small sandwiches filled with raw sausage from Bra...and then Mike and I split a bruschetta topped with squacquerone (a soft, tangy, white cheese), arugula, and prosciutto; and a tiny little cup of caramelized figs topped with more squacquerone.*** 

After attempting to eat ourselves into cheese comas, it was time for a little wine tasting at Mauro Veglio. This is the view from their tasting room.

No set of photos from the Piedmont would be complete without gratuitous castle-and-hilltop photos, so here you go. (This one's the view from Paolo Manzone, which is one of my happy places. Very, very happy.)

Here's another. These are all nebbiolo grapes, for the making of Barolo. Mmmmm. This was one of the views from La Rosa dei Vini, where we had lunch after our tasting at Paolo Manzoni. For once, I feel like I was the big winner, even amongst all nine of us: my deep-fried zucchini blossoms stuffed with a meat-veggie mix and served with a Castelmagno sauce (fonduta is the Italian word for cheese sauce, and how appropriate...) were utterly outstanding.

Fancy old Porsche in the town of Barolo.

Nebbiolo grapes at the Camerano tasting room. (Heaviest, densest grape cluster I've ever seen.)

Art Nouveau-era award at the Borgogno winery store.

I think it was "take your fancy old car out for a drive" day in Barolo.

Bakery reminding you that there's "Not only cheese!!!" in Bra.

Crazy winged faun-mermaid hybrid thing holding up a balcony in Bra.

Ohhhhh, food trucks, why won't you come to Switzerland? We need you.

Dinner on night 3 was at Boccondivino, the original Slow Food restaurant, and what a treat. My little tortino--kinda like a custardy frittata, with veggies and served with another cheese sauce (just say YES to fonduta, is what I say!)--was exquisite; Rene's gnocchi were the lightest ever; the tajarin noodes, both with the ragu sauce and with the butter/sage sauce, were excellent; the vitello tonnato was the best I've ever had (sorry, Gemma...); our brasato (beef braised in red wine) was perfectly tender and insanely tasty; and the cheese plates that we all shared at the end were phenomenal. 

By far, this was the clearest we'd ever seen the weather in the Piedmont. When we got up on Sunday to leave, it took me a few minutes to figure out that what I thought was a low cloud bank...

...was actually the Alps, stretching across the entire horizon. Which we hadn't seen here since our very first trip back in 2006. And certainly never, ever this clearly.

We drove back through said Alps, which were glorious that day. Leaving the Piemonte, we had a more-than-180-degree view of them: SPECTACULAR.

I love that drive up through Valle d'Aosta, since it's full of castles and quaint little towns and gorgeous scenery...and this time, we saw some weird stuff, too: a couple of fields full of hawks just sitting around on the ground; a pen full of antelope; and a hot-air balloon shaped like a bottle of dish liquid. Utterly surreal and totally excellent.**** 

Next, on to perhaps my favorite Alpabfahrt so far: Kerns (...or Chärns, as they spell it in that crazy Lozärnerdütsch). It didn't have as many, or as fancily-dressed, cows as we've seen in other places, but it's just a charming little town, the food was diverse and plentiful, and there was music everywhere. And people were friendly. (Sometimes you forget that that's a thing, in the Big City.)

Heh...German is even weirder here than it is in Zürich.

Maybe this is Erwin himself? Whatever the case, that's a lot of macaroni.

So cute when the little ones are involved.

The herders look unimpressed, even though there are Alp horns right there. (Naturally, they'd been playing those horns in the street about 5 minutes earlier.)

Fancy flowers, love the flags.

Some of them had these little painted wooden plaques, too, although having that much stuff perched up there makes me wonder how the cows feel about all of that embellishment. (They don't seem terribly perturbed, though.)

Aaaaaaand the food. These guys are frying local mushrooms in bacon fat, and then using them to make risotto. The mushrooms weren't for me, but that risotto was pretty all right.

A little three-piece traditional band next to the grocery store had one upright bass and two green squeezeboxes. (I believe these are of the Schwyzerörgeli variety, making them the most traditional of all 'round these parts.) Sadly, the video I took of them was all echo-y, since they were in this sorta enclosed parking area, but you can hear them here.

Kerns: it's pretty.

These guys were pretty great, too, and I could have listened to them for hours. (In fairness, though, I can say the same for most varieties of Swiss traditional music. That probably goes without saying, at this point.)

Love that tuba.

There was a kids' choir, too, and as far as I could tell, their only director was the guy with the squeezebox.

Yes, friends, that giant hunk of lumber is a rotisserie grill. (And are those veggies I see? I feel like we should be friends with these people...)

Cheese, as is standard at these affairs, was everywhere. And all 100% local, of course.

Pretty painted eaves in the center of town.

We're not entirely certain, but we think this guy was making punch. Quite an operation.

The ubiquitous käseschnitte. Kerns does it up: that's a full inch of cheese on that bread, prior to melting.

Yessssss. I'll take two.

Ahhh, fall, you bring such wondrous things with you! Cows and cheese and wine tasting and Oktoberfest and Herzbaracke and goodness knows what else! As for the Alpabzüge, I'm sad we didn't get to see any of the muppet sheep on parade, but I suppose we can aim for that next year. Other than that, however, I consider our ventures into the countryside a great success.

Next up: a few odds and ends, and a quick weekend in Milano to check out the Expo. Thankfully, far better things than that awaited us there!

*Two things here. First, I think it's a sign of how old I am, mentally, that all I could do amidst that noise was worry whether the herders were wearing ear protection. Seriously, herdfolk. IT'S LOUD. Second, after I edited this video, I managed to retitle it "Mels bells" by complete accident. Heh. (Mels bells, the cows are coming...Mels bells, you know they're home from the Alps...is how I hear it in my head.)

**I am not kidding here. Our rather discerning little group, which included an Italian, a Norwegian, and an Aussie, bought no fewer than two entire wheels of this Caveman blue. As you may or may not know about me, I absolutely despise blue (or bleu, or however you want to spell it--irrelevant!) cheese...but everything else on offer from the Americans were absolutely stellar, especially the cheddars. USA! USA! Woooo!

***Yes, I like that word. Squacquerone. In fact, I deeply love all of the cheese names in Italian...they're like music! Taleggio, Grana padano, mozzarella, ubriacco, asiago, squacquerone, Parmigiano, Castelmagno, Gorgonzola, robiola, pecorino, provolone...and those are just the ones I can think of, off the top of my head! (Italians, don't judge: I don't know which ones to capitalize. Beg pardon.)

****And no, thank you, I was not on anything, unless you count sleep deprivation, and unless the over-ingestion of cheese causes hallucinations. (I feel that in this area, I most certainly have enough experience to say that it does not.)