We would love to see one of the cow Festivals after our cruise which docks in Venice. We have two choices...9 days after Sept 9th or 9 days after sept 23.
Which time span would give us a better chance of hitting a festival? We have to return back to Venice for our flight Thanks for any suggestions, Jo
Hi, Jo. Folks from that part of the world may chime in with more specifics. I have visited a Viehscheid, and I am thinking it was around about the 23rd or a few days before. That said, there are so many possibilities: Südtirol, Tirol, Bavaria - Switzerland, I suppose is within your timeframe, too.
Some of the keywords I found useful are: Almabtrieb, Viehscheid, Alpabzug. There are others in Italian. I visited a parade outside of Innsbruck in Mutters. It was easy to get to on public transportation.
You have lots of time to research since most of the dates are not published till the end of summer. Try some sites like these to get an idea. You can use the translate function if needed.
https://www.tyrol.com/things-to-do/culture/tradition/cattle-drives
When I visited Mutters/Innsbruck, I was on my way to Padua, so similar to the trip you may be making. Trains from Venice, then onto Verona and on north are easy to navigate.
Have fun planning. Oh, and I found YouTube to be helpful in checking out some of the locations and past parades.
Debbie
Thanks Debbie for all the information, I will check the sites
I did a search on this forum for 'cow parades' there are quite a few threads on the subject. Looks like most reports of them are in Switzerland and generally occur around mid-Sept. You could possibly PM some of the posters and get more info on exact dates and how they came across the festivals/parades. Some are planned ahead and some just occur based on that year's weather. Here's a link to the results of the search.
Thank you, I'm on it!
Jo,
You'll probably have better luck finding "cow parades" in Switzerland. Two areas that you could check are Appenzell and Lauterbrunnen. I happened to be in Lauterbrunnen one year when the annual parade was held, and that was on 27 September (but I believe the date varies from year-to-year). You could try contacting the Tourist Information offices in each of those places to see if they can provide any further information.
Hi Jo,
The word you want to search is "Almabtrieb". There are so many in Austria, Bavaria and South Tyrol (Italian Dolomites).
You can attend many just in the Zillertal alone. The Zillertal is about 45 minutes east from Innsbruck.
The one in Mayrhofen is very big:
https://www.mayrhofen.at/en/events/almabtrieb-cattle-drive/
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kgnv8th73C8
Others:
https://www.tyrol.com/things-to-do/culture/tradition/cattle-drives
https://www.tyrol.tl/en/events/results/?sid=dHBjOjE0O2Q6MjAxOC0wOS0wMiwyMDE4LTA5LTMw
Paul
Jo, I presume you are docking in Vienna not Venice?
The tail end of September is on the late side for the majority of alamatrieb's in southern Bavaria and the Tirol.
Sorry, Venice it is.
