COW FIGHTING

EXCERPT FROM EUROTRIPPING ©JR DAESCHNER

A lesser woman might be jealous or-more likely-worried. But Frédéric claims his French girlfriend understands his passion, insofar as any foreigner can.

'My cows. We have a strange relationship. It's like love with your cows.'
Rather than a love that dare not moo its name, though, Frédéric's bovine devotion transcends the bounds of merely physical or even platonic amour, hovering somewhere between spiritual kinship and outright worship.

Whereas other people might lavish a similar level of adoration on their housepets, Valaisan cows are barnyard animals weighing six to eight hundred kilos-combative milk machines the size of water buffalos-that could impale their owners instantly if the temper took them.

They may be called Pamela, Bella, Venus or Madonna, but don't let the feminine names fool you: these cows have horns. In fact, they look like big, black bulls with udders: the cow world's equivalent of she-males.

Every spring and autumn, villages in this rural canton in southwest Switzerland hold head-butting battles of supremacy to see which cow merits the title of La Reine des Reines: the 'Queen of Queens'.

One of the premiere Combats des Reines takes place in Martigny against the backdrop of the Alps and the town's ancient Roman amphitheatre. 'It's fantastic,' Frédéric enthuses. 'You feel like the gladiators!'

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