I hope you have all had a wonderful weekend and some sunshine. It has been an incredibly hot weekend here in Meilen with temperatures on our terrace reaching 45 degrees centigrades! We were litterally melting in the sun...
But this hasn't stopped us from going out on Saturday afternoon to experience an unusual slice of Swiss life. A holzerwettkampf (the literal translation is timber contest) was taking place in Pfannenstiel and drew competitors from all over Europe as well as hundreds of locals.
The concept is simple: take lots of strong men and a fair amount of trees. Mix with tools I'd be too scared to touch for fear of losing a limb and add a lot of beer and a sausage grill...and you have a really fun, if not different, day out. Mr T and I were very excited about this event all week. Alf was just excited to be out for the day and chatted up a few lovely canine ladies.
This was an international competition and everyone took it very seriously. Chopping wood is an art you see. No sarcasm here, it is truly amazing (and dangerous) what those guys can do. So all competitors were registered and had numbers, and all judges (wearing the yellow t-shirts) were busy measuring both the speed and the accuracy of the lumberjacks.
Machines and horses were also competing...
Men were racing each others up trees...
...while an artist was creating some amazing sculptures with a chainsaw!
We had a really awesome time! What have you been up to this weekend?
PS: Some of you may have noticed that the blog design has been changing quite a bit in the last few days. Please bear with me while I try new things. I am not completely happy with the template as it is currently...I need a background picture to fit perfectly with the Made in Suisse spirit and I haven't found it yet. So you'll have to do with Alf for now...Apologies but this blog is very much still a work in progress!
4 comments:
Sausages and sweaty men - sounds like a dream for Andy!
love to you both
ashx
What a macho contest *LOL*
Shame I missed that!
Didn't realise that you lived in Meilen (I am over the other side of the hill, and literally as well :D)...
Who knows, we might run into each other one day. I'll just have to keep a look out for Alf! :)
loving the chainsaw sculptures. My grandpa was swiss but he never did anything like this! the button braclets were not made by me, they were made at the loacl hospital by stroke victims as part of their rehab and sold in aid of the local church. I liked them too and was very tempted to get one for me!
Sounds like a fun day!
Victoria xx
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