Tuesday, 9 October 2012

Cheers from Munich

 
 
 
PROST from the German city of Munich, in the heart of Bavaria and home to Oktoberfest, which is essentially a 3-week long beer festival.
 
The two hearty travellers pictured above may have underestimated just how crazy Oktoberfest really is when they boarded the coach from London to Munich. 19-hours of driving and one ferry later these two lovely ladies arrived at their campsite in Munich, complete with traditional German drindl costumes and wellies for the mud.
 
The festival itself started in 1810 as a wedding celebration for King Ludwig and his bride when everyone was invited to partake in the festivities and yes, the beer. Two hundred years later the festival is still going strong, with something like 7 million litres of beer consumed every year and thousands of Oktoberfest celebrations modelled after Munich everywhere around the world. The majority of the locals and tourists wear traditional outfits - drindls for the women and yes, leiderhosen for the men. From nine in the morning this weekend there were huge crowds of people vying to get in to the beer tents, because if you are not in early then you likely won't get a seat, and you can't get served beer unless you're sitting at a table. Inside the beer tents the band plays German music while everyone sings, clinks their steins and eats sausage.
 
The thing that struck me about Oktoberfest is that the main reason people go there is literally to drink. To drink beer. To drink beer from one-litre steins. I can tell you from experience that one litre is a lot of beer.
 
 
 
It seems a little ridiculous that this is the only size in which beer is served at Oktoberfest. One might wonder if this is not asking for people to get out of control drunk, which is not uncommon at this festival. At our campsite, they physically removed all of the toilet seats in the washrooms because they have had so many issues during past festivals. The main tents close fairly early in the evening, but there was a bar at the campsite we stayed in, and never fear if you get really desparate - just head to the vending machine full of Lowenbrau brew...
 
It was good just to be there and experience the whole thing, plus I got to wear a really cute drindl costume, so that was definitely a plus. But I don't know that drinking festivals are really my thing. At least, festivals at which drinking is the main attraction. Add in our truly stellar accomodations (sleeping in rows of tents with tons of other young twenty-somethings enjoying the festivities) and 2 over night bus rides, and this weekend has been thoroughly exhausting.
 
That said, we did have a really great time at the festival and met some awesome people from different parts of the world. We saw the cliffs of Dover and the countryside of Germany. We learned there's not many vegetarian options at Oktoberfest, and I got a really great hat. Those crazy Germans may have way more stamina for drinking and partying than two innocent Canadians, but we certainly made some memories to last us a lifetime at Oktoberfest.
 
 

 
 
 
 
 
 

No comments:

Post a Comment