Hooray, Hooray - It's Swiss National Day

August 1^st is Swiss National Day – a national holiday when Swiss commemorate the foundation of the first confederation which came about with the meeting of three mediaeval chaps in a field next to Lake Lucern in the canton of Uri in 1291. They resolved to recognise no authority other than their own, and it’s from this alliance that modern Switzerland emerged. What better way then, than to spend the day exploring some bits of Switzerland we haven’t seen before – Neuchatel and the Valley of the Lac de Joux.

Flags. Thousands of 'em

Now, if there’s one thing as certain as a Swiss train arriving at the station on time, it’s that the Swiss like to fly a flag. In fact, they like to fly lots of them. Not only do they fly the Swiss national flag, but they will also fly their cantonal flag and often the flag of the town or city. That makes them some of the most enthusiastic flag fliers in the world by measure of number of flags flown per head of population.

So, as you can imagine, on Swiss national day, there are more flags out and about than you can shake a flag at. Coming from a country where displays of national pride are confined almost entirely to sporting occasions – and even then for a mercifully short period of time on account of British participation in sporting events being invariably short-lived – it’s actually quite heartening to see such enthusiasm for celebrating nationhood.

In addition to the flags, there are fireworks and bonfires. In fact, judging by the amount of pyrotechnics on sale in nearly every type of shop, I was expecting the entire nation to be propelled six inches downwards into the Earth’s crust on account of the downforce created when all of the rockets went off. Though the result wasn’t quite so dramatic, we did see and hear some pretty impressive displays from our apartment.

The Bug prevents us being able to go into town to see how Nyon celebrates Fete Nationale Suisse, so we decided to watch the festivities on TV – in any case, there was really very little choice as all four Swiss language broadcasters dedicated 2 hours of their schedules to the coverage. On the traditional side, there were lots of lederhosen, cowbells (with cows attached), alphorns and yodelling – the latter two of which are surprisingly impressive – and re-enactments of the mediaeval chaps meeting in the field and the William Tell story (which features the field encounter in some way I don’t fully understand).

These traditional cultural spectacles were mixed with modern performances by Swiss pop and rock ‘stars’ (less said about them, the better) and there were also performances by the Swiss Army Concert Orchestra (it’s amazing how those instruments fit in their penknives) and appearances by stars of Swiss life – that referee from the Champions League final was one of them, but Roger Federer did not make an appearance, presumably because he’s otherwise engaged looking after his new twins: Charlene Riva and Myla Rose (names befitting children of a man who thinks those gold-edged white jackets are a sartorial master-stroke in the class of his forehand). All ‘stars’ were asked why being Swiss is special to them, but seeing as they pretty much all answered in Swiss German, there’s little chance of the rest of us being enlightened in this regard.

Cow Fighting

Just before the main event, we stumbled across something that I can’t imagine the animal rights brigade in the UK would be able to stomach, certainly not on prime time TV – cow fighting.

The title – and the fact that the winner is adorned with a floral headdress and called a ‘queen’ – contradicts the evidence (sometimes clearly on show) that these were very obviously bulls. This event involved several pairs of bulls taking each other on in horned combat until one of them ran away like the big girl the competition seemed determined to make him feel like. The highlight was when around three bulls, trying to gore each other in the throat drove each other through the poor defences of the arena (1 metre high rope held by some burly farm hands ringed by a few advertising boards in front of the stands of massed crowds). Attempts to lasso the bulls with yarns of cotton had unsurprisingly little effect as the bulls charged ‘china shop style’ through the barriers sending onlookers running as if suddenly finding themselves in Pamplona. Unfortunately, I don’t know what happened to the errant beasts, as – rather like when a streaker graces a sportsfield accompanied by his small friend – the cameras cut away and focused on the ‘real’ action.

So, that was Swiss national day. I should also add that Neuchatel was lovely, as was the Vallee du Lac de Joux – some stunning wooded alpine scenery and two new lakes ticked off (Neuchatel and Lac de Joux), but also some unexpectedly large expanses of agricultural plains, the produce from which will be in our local supermarkets soon, no doubt, as the Swiss are very proud of their local produce (and with good reason). In fact, I think my experiences of Swiss national day sum up the Swiss – you think you know what they’re all about, and that’s pretty much right. But there are aspects of Switzerland that are quite unexpected - and the Swiss ar simply proud of it all.