The hills are alive...with the sound of cow bells and Lynard Skynard!

That title made you want to read all our about our fun weekend trip to the Austrian Alps, right!? Zev came home one day last week and told me about a colleague at work that was going to travel to Switzerland to watch the annual procession of cows coming down from their summer pastures in the Alps. Thanks to google and language translation websites, I learnt that the Austrian name for this event is "almabtrieb" which literally means procession down the mountain. (The Swiss word is "transhumance" and the German word is "almwirtschaft.") Anyhoo, we decided to head towards the almabtrieb in the ADORABLE little Austrian Alps town of Hippach. It was about a 3 and a half hour drive according to our trusty TomTom, but with traffic and a couple of stops, it took us about 5 hours. The drive was truly beautiful though. If you have ever read the children's book "Heidi" or seen the "Sound of Music", you will be able to imagine what the landscape looked like- think beautiful, majestic snow-capped mountains, with lush green valleys and meadows, traditional wooden houses and barns with flowers dangling down and cows EVERYWHERE! The air was so clean and fresh- we just sat in awe at one point and took it all in.

So what about the cow bells/ Lynard Skynard comment!? As a lot of you know, one of our wedding songs in Australia was "Sweet Home Alabama" in honor of the fact that we were moving to Alabama. Imagine our surprise then, when we pull into the little town of Hippach and see the town gathered in a field around cows decorated with gorgeous flower headdresses and lovely cow bells. We smiled and commented on how this was such a typical Austrian Alps scene- lush mountains, town folk in traditional costume, brats and wurst on the grill, the sound of cow bells as the cows move around and.....the familiar strains of "Sveet Home Alabuma" (think Austrian accent). It really was quite an experience to listen to American country rock (everything from "Sweet Home Alabama" of course to Dire Straits, and even Johnny Cash's "Walk the Line"), along with the clanging of cow bells in the Austrian Alps. We really loved our experience at the almabtriebfest and hope that you enjoy our pictures AND for the first time ever- some video links! Auf Wiedersehen!