Saint Bernard Museum in Martigny

The sign for the train at the Lausanne station, the third train in my itinerary after the Brugg-to-Bern, and Bern-to-Lausanne stretches. Vevey (where Charlie Chaplin lived until his death) and Montreux (home of the Montreux Jazz Festival) are on Lake Geneva. Bex is home to the oldest salt mine in Switzerland.


The museum is located in a former military warehouse. It was a rainy day when I visited, so the usually grand views of the mountains are missing.


One of the windows at the museum.


Inside one of the pens in the kennel area. They're mostly glass sided, and set up in a way that the visitors can't come into contact with the dogs.


Resting.


The Great St. Bernard Hospice, an article in an early edition of Scientific American.


A section is devoted to the representation of the dogs in cartoons.

Addendum: Claude, one of my readers, mentioned Barry (1800-1814) and I realized that I should have said something about him. He's possibly the most famous of the rescuers, with at least 40 rescues to his credit. Below is an image of a poster for Fondation Barry, an organization that owns the kennel of the hospice of the Grand Saint Bernard.


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Cow fighting in Valais

The spectators ringside. Note the families with little kids.

The cows walking around.

One seemed to be eager to get on with the business of going up to the mountain meadows.

There was only this one water trough for the 30+ cows, which I thought was insufficient. The cow herders kept having to guard some of the ones taking a drink, to prevent a few other feisty ones from disturbing them while they were drinking.

The toilet for the biped masses.

The movie clip (just under two minutes long at 320 x 240 resolution):




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