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.)

food and fireworks. and then more of both.

My friends, it was a close call last weekend: I nearly killed myself with food. We decided to brave the hipster masses and went to the latest Zürich Street Food Festival, and goodness, was it worthwhile. (Especially arriving at 5:30 on a Friday evening...the crowds were totally not there yet. Also, it was massive--80 vendors!--and outdoors, which meant there was actually a little maneuvering space even with the crowds.) While waiting to meet up with Mike, I downed a whole (small) plate of rather spectacular tilapia ceviche, including fried corn and slices of various sweet potatoes.* Look, I wanted to share, but cripes, was he taking forever to get there! Ahem. Once he finally did join me, we shared a truly memorable Vietnamese crepe (banh xeo) filled with chicken, shredded carrots, sprouts, and fish sauce, liberally dosed by me with Sriracha. (Ohhhh, but those edges were crispy!) Next came tequenos, which are a Venezuelan snack featuring, in this case, sausages and chunks of cheese, wrapped in dough and deep-fried; a chopped beef and a vegetarian soft taco with poblano-corn-cheese filling, from a stand serving up genuinely awesome Mexican food and crazy-hot red salsa (and a terrific tangy green); super cumin-y pakoras with a sweet red sauce; a chorizo taco with blue and white corn tortillas and green avocado salsa; octopus takoyaki with various toppings; a HUGE, hand-held zucchini-ricotta ravioli eaten "wie ein Sandwich"; a chocolate cupcake with peanut butter icing (supposedly vegan, but I DON'T KNOW HOW THAT'S POSSIBLE, it was so good!); and, finally, sugar-and-cinnamon-topped churros.

Mike with a his-hand-sized, grilled ravioli. Yum.

Then, on Saturday, we hosted a combination birthday-and-post-wedding BBQ for our friends August and Pia, who, being Swedish and rather accomplished hunters, supplied 7 kilos of moose brisket, which we smoked and then (along with roughly 12 other people) devoured entirely, along with a 3-kilo smoked moose meatloaf, two salads, various chips and nuts, and an apple pie and a half. There was enough meatloaf left over for a single sandwich, and that was it. No surprise, though: I think moose is my new favorite red meat. Holy cow (...if you will...), is that stuff delicious.

Finally, on Sunday, as it was sunny outside and we hadn't eaten nearly all of the things we'd wanted at the Street Food Festival on Friday...we went back. Round two involved another banh xeo; more ceviche, but this time with "chicharron de pescado" (i.e, wee fried fish bites); a rather large half-sandwich with pastrami and cheese on a nice grainy bread; Japanese fried chicken; chicken flautas from those people with the outrageous salsas (they were out of tacos by then, to our complete disappointment, but their flautas were clearly homemade and awesome!); and then we went out with a bang: big, overstuffed arepas, one with pulled pork, corn salsa, lettuce, and tangy red sauce; and the other with sheep's cheese, avocado, and the same corn and red salsas. The vegetarian arepa was one of the best things I've stuffed into my face in a long, long time: SO. SPECTACULAR. I think it was my favorite thing from the entire festival, and obviously, that's saying a lot, as we ate a lot. (And intended to eat just a wee bit more, but the churros had run out by the time we left. Probably for the best, but still...those things are just so good.)

Vegetarian arepa. Holy wow. Happiness in a grilled cornmeal bun.

And now, to the real story: our August 1 adventures! To sum up: August 1 is the big Swiss national holiday celebrating the unification of the still-insanely-independent Swiss cantons into the Confoederatio Helvetica (Latin for "Swiss Confederation," essentially) in 1291. I'm going to go on record to say that it's a ridiculous name, but it does explain the CH in CHF (the abbreviation for the currency of Switzerland, the Swiss franc/frank), and the .ch in Swiss domain names, among other things. The cantons have their own governments, tax laws, citizenship requirements, and, among other things, holidays--but August 1 is the one holiday to rule them all. In the past, we've stayed in Zürich and thrown a big barbecue for it, but as Zürich does nothing to celebrate, other than to let crazy drunk people light off giant and dangerous fireworks anywhere they want (fun the first time, but then just stupid when you stop and think about it!), I felt it was time to explore some actual organized celebrations elsewhere. And because Basel usually hosts their city-wide party (the Bundesfeier am Rhein!) on July 31, we were able to make it a two-day-er. Woooo!**

After riding in just a little bit of light rain, we arrived in Basel early-evening, dropped the motorcycle off at our hotel next to Spalentor (an ideal location, seeing as how it's a only 10-minute walk from the festivities, but in a much, much quieter part of town!), and headed towards the river.

Spalentorrrrrrrrr! Fantastical as ever.

I call this "Rathaus with Sausage Truck." (The main festivities were centered around Mittlerer Brücke, on either side of the Rhein, with a big collection of food vendors and music and games on the Rathausplatz.)

View from Mittlerer Brücke of the fireboat races on the river.

Alp horn performance in Kleinbasel.

Naturally, tons of the Gugge bands had booths there selling sausages and beer to raise money for Fasnacht. (It's only 5 months away, people!)

I don't know whether this is normal, seeing as how it was our first August 1 in Basel, but they had no fewer than five music groups performing when we arrived, and I know there were more scattered around the festivities. What I do know is that they were utterly top-notch, and totally unexpected.

I think these guys were my favorite: right on the Rathausplatz, we found the Steppin' Stompers, a Swiss Dixieland band. I could have stayed and listened to them all night. (Featuring guest appearance by Charlie Chaplin towards the end.)

 

Around the corner were these guys, the Feldmusikverein Basel, who had some serious Big Band chops.

These guys were playing on the bridge, next to the little chapel in the middle. (Yep, that's 'Born Free.')

On the other side of the bridge, right after the Alp horn performance, the (also Swiss) Bayou Street Beat & Brass Band came marching through. (Don't know what was up with all the Dixieland, but I loved every second of it.)

Ugh, I know it's excessive, but I feel like I'd be remiss if I didn't recount for you what we ate, so...a flammkuchen baguette; a bowl of Thai noodles and veggies; Vietnamese coconut shrimp and spring rolls; and a "piranha wurst" (spicy, of course.) Even when it's not quite as exotic as the goodies one finds at the Street Food fairs, I'm not going to kid you: I love me some festival food.

And finally, there were the fireworks. Pretty much everything I read about Basel's big party said not to stand on the Mittlerer Brücke for the fireworks--it's too crowded, dangerous, don't bring strollers and/or small children, etc., etc. We decided we were growns-up enough to decide for ourselves, though, and parked ourselves right in the middle of it, and it was a great decision. It wasn't the biggest or most impressive firework display ever, but it wasn't small, and it was on both sides of us--they do the same show from barges in the river on either side of the bridge! I somehow managed not to get video of the dual shows, but here's a not-great photo with the barge at the bottom. (So at least there's that.)

Way, way better than avoiding the crazies at Bellevue.

The next day, we had some time to kill before heading to Lauterbrunnen, our second destination, and since we were right across the street from the University of Basel's main botanic garden, I dragged Mike over there to look at some fancy plants. (You might remember this garden from such posts as the one in which our attempt to see the world's largest flower in bloom was unsuccessful.) And now, consider yourselves warned: if you didn't know me in my past life as a Denver housewife, I'M ALL ABOUT THE PLANTS AND THE GREENHOUSES. I have actual hundreds of photos from Denver's amazing botanic gardens, and so there will be far too many photos of Basel's here. (FYI, I can unreservedly recommend both Denver's and Basel's gardens. The latter ain't huge, but it's quality.)

In Basel's, there are birds! Fancy, fancy birds!

This one is, in fact, as turquoise as it appears. (He, or one of his ilk, began dive-bombing us a bit later. I think they were quite ready for us to go.)

Titanwurz is apparently a tree when it's not in bloom. (Who knew??  Botanists, probably.)

We saw a few of these little guys, too, but they were just too fast to photograph. (Tiny green birds with white spectacle eyes?? YES, PLEASE. GAHHHHH, SO CUTE AND HOPPY!!)

Ok, so obviously this is related to hibiscus, but still...it's upside-down, and so very feathery!

Nifty outdoor grotto complete with huge cypress tree.

Outrageously cool succulent that looks like green roses. (GET IN MY HOUSE, PLANT! And you can be the bestest of friends with my new wee green bird...)

Totally gorgeous carnivorous plant display.

The Viktoriahaus, built in 1898 to house these gigantic water lilies. (By our estimation, there are about a gajillion tiny little fish in the ponds in this room.)

After we'd (ok, I...I'm pretty sure Mike was ready to tap out after 10 minutes) had our fill of succulents and cacti and lovely landscaping and pretty (but slightly kamikaze) birds, we bundled up and got back on the bike to ride south to Lauterbrunnen. I'd been wanting to go there for ages, and so when I discovered that they had their own little August 1 party, it seemed like the perfect excuse to go. Sadly, it was fairly chilly and a bit rainy, and so the activities earlier in the day had been canceled, but at least we still had the view:

Main street from our hotel balcony, with bonus waterfall on the right.

View of the canyon wall across the street from our hotel.

We shared a massive and delicious pastrami sandwich, bought me a belt (that's not a euphemism for anything--I'd forgotten mine, and was desperately hitching up the one too-big pair of pants that I own), and then opted to have dinner at our hotel. While I found their list of rösti intriguing, it was quite cool outside, and so we got a bit crazy and went for their fondue-for-two, which included an excellent salad with garlicky dressing as a starter, and a well-portioned pot of Vacherin for the cheese, attended by some lovely brown bread, a couple of potatoes, and chives/garlic/onions as extras to add in. And was followed by a homemade apple strudel with vanilla sauce and whipped cream.*** We dined outside on the front patio, which Mike figured would be the perfect spot to view the little "local clubs" parade that was the only non-firework August 1 activity not canceled that day. As it turned out, he was totally right.

On their way to the parade, this yodel choir stopped to serenade our patio. Awesome. (They rode by during the parade on the back of a flatbed truck, sitting at a picnic table, drinking something that I'm sure was keeping them all quite warm.)

This band also stopped and played at our patio.

Sadly, the parade was about thislong, and since it was dark and cold and they were all moving quite quickly, I didn't get any other useable photos of them. There were a couple of groups of people in traditional dress, as well as a guy dressed as Wilhelm Tell, carrying a crossbow; the marching band; the yodel choir in the truck; and that was about it. Finished just in time to go figure out where the fireworks were!

Across the river and down in the canyon, as it turned out. There was a big bonfire going (foreground), and in the background here, you can kinda see those ridiculously sheer rock walls that were on either side of us.

And that, friends, made for some pretty impressive fireworks. Not the visuals so much as the sound, however. Before the smoke got too thick, you could see the fireworks light up the sides of the canyon, but later on, you could only see the explosions themselves and hear the insane echoes bouncing back and forth off the rock walls. Seriously awesome.

Thankfully, the weather the next morning had cleared, and so we got the real view:

Holy...smokes...

Why yes, that is a waterfall quite literally in town.

This isn't the best photo, but I tell you, the Swiss are the best window-box gardeners on the planet. Geraniums and petunias are healthy and everywhere, as soon as the weather is warm enough!

On our way out of town, we found some breakfast at a wee cafe down the street from our hotel, then decided to drive up the canyon to visit the Trümmelbach falls on a whim. Trümmelbach, for those of you who don't know--and we certainly didn't--is a waterfall inside a mountain. According to their signage, it is the sole drainage for the "mighty glacier defiles" of the Eiger, Monch, and Jungfrau peaks (all of which are over 13,000 feet, and are major and famous Alps); runs at 20,000 liters per second; and carries with it 20,200 tons of "boulder detritus" per year. All of that to say that good grief, does Mother Nature pack a punch. There are 10 distinctive sections of waterfall here, and none fail to impress. (Sadly, none of the videos I tried to take were even remotely in focus, so you'll just have to imagine the absolutely thunderous sound of this waterfall, along with things a video wouldn't capture--the chill and the dampness in the air and the rock as you climb around inside of this mountain like a weird little interior-mountain goat, and the way you can feel the rock shaking under your feet. Incredible and thrilling and terrifying, all at once.)

I know these stairs aren't quite as picturesque as the rest, but the engineering implemented here is truly impressive. Whomever designed and then cut all of the tunnels and stairs and viewing ledges and little windows inside this mountain--and installed the safety railing, lest we forget!--did a remarkable job. (Still...no kids under 4 allowed, and I think that's really pushing it.)

Back out in the sunshine, the view was this:

Sheesh. Fun fact: there are 72 waterfalls in this valley, and there's apparently a relatively easy hike that you can take between Lauterbrunnen and Stechelberg that'll let you see a good number of them. (Next time...!)

After that, it was time to head home. Not that the drive was in any way painful: we drove through Interlaken and Brienz, and along the shores of insanely turquoise lakes for most of the way. (I've said it before, and I'll say it again: this country is crazy beautiful. But here's a new twist: I think I might need move to Brienz someday. Jeez, so quaint and stunning...)

Next up: I get to cash in on my Christmas present--a trip to Verona to see the opera in their Roman amphitheater. (Yeah, that's a real thing. That we did.)

*Eating an entire plate of anything is a big no-no in my own personal "How To Do a Street Food Festival Justice" handbook--Rule 1: share everything, so as to be able to try more things!!--but in this case, it was totally worth it. 

**My apologies: I decided not to carry the big camera, due to crowds in Basel and forecasted rain in Lauterbrunnen, and I think it was the right decision. That having been said, all of these photos/videos are from our phones. So, sorry for the low quality. Ugh.

***Yes, I know fondue's a winter food, thank you. But it was cold enough outside, we were in the mountains, and the longer we live here, the more we like fondue, so it happened. No regrets.