Living That Shepherd Life

Sometime in the last few years, I got weirdly obsessed with sheep. Specifically, Valais Blacknose Sheep. Let me just tell you, they’re adorable. We had a few cute sheep decorations around the house growing up, and I guess I didn’t realize that real life sheep were just as precious! I knew they lived in Switzerland, and it got to the point where I was following multiple shepherd accounts on Instagram and researching how to go see them. I know it’s weird, don’t judge me!

Anyways, I found a shepherd festival. It took an excessive amount of Googling, “where to meet Valais sheep,” but I found one. Without batting an eye at the strangeness of my need to go meet them, three of my friends agreed to get a hotel in Zermatt for the weekend.

Zermatt is exactly what you’d expect from a ski village. It’s the perfect mountain town, with 16th century timber chalets, cafes beckoning you to try their fondue, and cute shops full of outdoor gear. We spent the first day wandering in the rain and eating cheese. The fondue is truly delicious; ours came with homemade bread and little potatoes. There’s something so decadent about fondue. I bought a bag of gruyere to take home, and then (embarrassingly) ate the bowl of fondue by myself for dinner over the course of a few days… nothing like a bowl of hot cheese to fill you up!

The rain was really coming down on Saturday, driving us inside. We worried that the Shepherd Festival would be a mess; who wants to be up a mountain, in the mud, with a bunch of wet, stinky livestock?! Luckily, Sunday was beautiful. The sun was out, the sky bright blue, and the mountains stood out vividly all around us. We left early, taking a bus to a chair lift, and a chair lift up to a farm. Then, there they were: the cutest sheep ever!

For some reason, I thought they’d be on the smaller side, but sheep are BIG! They filled a large pen on the lawn, where we were able to pet them and feed them bits of grass. It was such a traditional festival, completely untouched by tourism. While we obsessively took pictures of the sheep and tried to lure them over to pet, a priest held mass on the lawn, blessing the shepherds and their flocks. After, there was a beauty contest: Miss Zermatt, the most beautiful sheep in the land! There were even yodelers! The only part I didn’t love was the shearing of the sheep; they were so stressed! It was like a piñata at a birthday party; kids gathered, frantically collecting wool as fast as they could. But… I guess that’s the authentic experience of Swiss sheep!