Transhumance

Types of transhumance

With regard to the cattle, one distinguishes two types of transhumance:

normal transhumance, first of all, also estival transhumance, which indicates the rise on the mountain pastures of mountain of the herds originating in the low plains. The mountain pasture lasts in general of the beginning of June at the end of September.
transhumance reverses on the contrary, also called winter transhumance or désalpe (in Suisse), which is the fleeing fact of herds of mountain, the come winter, rigors of the mountain climate while going down towards the more moderate plains.

Festivals of transhumance

Transhumances, concerning many stockbreeders, were or are still the occasion of local Fête S.

The Festival of transhumance in Ariège

It is about the accompaniment of the herds in mountain (sheep, bovines, horses, Mérens) by convivial animations, meals, folk spectacles, in the middle of the the Pyrenees, in the Couserans, a border region in the West of the Ariège. Transhumances in Ariège-Couserans

The Festival of transhumance in Aubrac

As the tradition wants it, it takes place each year Sunday nearest of May 25th. Indeed, according to an ancestral practice, the herds of bovines go up since the surrounding valleys on the plate of the Aubrac on May 25th for the Urbain saint. They spend all the summer in the greens pastures before going down again for the Géraud Saint on October 13rd.

This tradition, sharp and coloured, became a great popular holiday. In 1993, association Southern Aubrac Lozere organized its first festival of transhumance to the Col of Bonnecombe and gained a great success, which encouraged it to continue this beautiful festival each year.

The Festival of the Return of the Mountain pastures to Annecy

To celebrate winter transhumance consisting in going down again the herds of the mountain pastures towards the valleys, the town of Annecy is the seat of a setting in scene aiming at giving to the last style the trades and savors of formerly. Each second Saturday of October, of many people in costumes of time show some trades forgotten like the pit sawyers or the Cardeur S, without forgetting the Brodeuse S. Of the old mets are also made and proposed with tasting, such as the bidoyon (apple juice coldly in a hurry), the Blood pudding or the bugnes (kind of fritters). In the middle of the afternoon, a long procession of animals (geese, sheep, cows, goats, asses, horses, etc) and folk groups have been proposed to the spectators, estimated at approximately 40.000 each year for more than twenty years

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