Ok this is a bit of a weird one to have on the list as I'm not really much of a beer fan. Actually I can just about drink a Corona on a hot day at home and although refreshing I can never bring myself to have that second one as I feel super bloated and it tastes bitter after a while. However Oktoberfest has always appealed to me. Getting immersed in Bavarian culture whilst having one big party with millions of people from around the world - whats not to like (apart from the copious amounts of beer you're required to drink to get truly involved).
Although this has always been something I wanted to do there are SOOOOOOOO many destinations on my travel list that Germany really wasn't ranking very highly in comparison to the likes of Central America and South East Asia. But then I went on a Busabout tour of Eastern Europe and a few people on our bus had been and kept raving about how amazing it was and Busabout happened to have an Oktoberfest offer going at the time so it was literally get home from Croatia, request annual leave and book Oktoberfest!! I'm really impulsive when it comes to booking travel!
I was so excited about the trip but it amazed me how many people hadn't heard of Oktoberfest!! Its something that I've always known about and thought this was the norm. The basic history behind it (in a nutshell) is that a royal couple in Germany in the 1800s decided to get their country on board by celebrating their wedding in Munich and hosting a big festival and event with beer, horse races etc so that everyone felt part of the celebrations. The people loved it so much that they begged to celebrate the anniversary every year and although the horse races and other stuff got lost along the way its still celebrated today and is one of the biggest festivals on the planet and a tribute to all things Bavarian. Thankyou King Ludwig I and Therese for throwing such an awesome party!
So after an amazing summer I set off to meet my friend in Munich for some German beer-drinking shenanigans. Due to flight connections I got to our (freezing cold!) campsite the night before she did and had only been there a few minutes before I was told to grab a beer. They have beer vending machines in Germany!! No jokes!! Who needs Pepsi when you can have a giant can of Lowenbrau I guess! Anyway I took it easy the first night and just had two, which was probably a good call as its not easy to sleep in a tent in a campsite full of drunk people when its freezing cold. Once my friend arrived the next day we went to explore Munich city centre, which included shopping for Lederhosen and Dirndls and having dinner (sausages of course) and drinks (litres of beer) at a traditional beergarden. We tried on about 6 dirndls ... loved most of them (seriously these things are so flattering, they look good on anyone) and ended up spending 80 euros on a traditional Bavarian outfit which I don't think I'll ever pull off other than being a German beer maid at the next few fancy dress parties I'm invited to.
The next day we were up at 7 and queuing outside the beer halls before the doors opened at 9am. By 9.15 I was sitting at a table with a bunch of new friends, all kitted out in the finest Bavarian wear, with a giant 1 litre stein of beer in front of me. For breakfast. Normally the thought of that would make me sick but the atmosphere was so amazing that the time of day didn't matter (although you can spot the bags under our eyes in all the photos). The outfits were a good call ... all over Munich everyone was sporting them and you would have looked out of place in a beer hall without one. These tents are massive with between two and eight thousand people seated in each tent at any given time and everyone is all dressed up. Germany efficiency is brilliant too ... the toilets remain clean, anyone being a drunken idiot gets kicked out and if you don't have a seat you don't get service. If anything the only disappointing thing was that I expected to see a buxon blonde with massive boobs and braided hair serving my beer in order to live up to the stereotype but most of the woman were practically Amazonian and in their 40s and amazingly strong to be able to carry 10 steins of beer at any given time through a rowdy crowd. After the first one I needed two hands just to hold up one!! We had an awesome first day. The bands add to the atmosphere and everyone dances on the tables and clinks their steins together, whilst drunk people attempt to learn the lyrics to german beer drinking songs and nursery rhymes (the song repetoire is rather limited!). There's also plenty of food on offer which is great cos about 3 standard beers fit in each of those steins and the alcohol percentage is much higher than in the rest of Europe so after two you're already buzzing. Easily solved by eating ridiculous amounts of sausages, schnitzel, roast chickens, pork knuckles and pretzels ... german cuisine really isn't friendly to waistlines. There's also a massive theme park surrounding the tents in case you get bored of beer and dancing (not likely!) and feel you can resist the urge to spew on the rollercoasters.
The best thing about the festival is the atmosphere. Someone I know calls it the happiest place on earth and that sums it up pretty well. Its like Disneyworld for adults but with more alcohol. On the second day we went beer tent hopping. It was later in the day and the tents were largely full so we had to gatecrash tables to get served because of the table service rule. This meant we met a ton of Germans, Austrians, Romanians, Italians etc ... all of whom welcomed us onto their table, clinked their glasses and shared laughs, dances and stories with us. There was one couple who even told us how they'd met at Oktoberfest 7 years ago, got married the following year and go back every year for their anniversary. Cute! All this whilst dancing in dirndls to german folk music on benches drinking beer in the middle of the day. So awesome.
So basically if you can do it go!!!! I'd love to go again some day. And don't worry if you don't like beer ... German beer tastes different to the stuff on tap at home. Less gassy and much more flavoursome. Loved the Augustiner brewers and the Paulaner Weissbier was immense!
The trip was also an eye opener. Germany is an amazing holiday destination. Munich and Bavaria were gorgeous with its castles and culture and I decided to extend my stay for an extra week and explore Berlin, which I fell in love with. I went on my own (which everyone should try at least once) and met some amazing people in the city and consumed even more beer and sausages. The city is steeped with history and culture - I went to 4 museums in one day and wasn't remotely bored ... A royal castle, a museum on Nazi occupation, world war II history ... all amazingly interesting. Then there's the beautiful buildings and the bohemian atmosphere of East Berlin with its street beggars asking for weed money and graffiti on every corner. Not to mention the nightlife ... we went to a ping pong bar (not the Thai type - one where drunk people play competitive ping pong), a gothic metal bar, a hippy bar, an underground drum n bass club and a commercial house club in the same night - on a Thursday. Its now one of my favourite European cities right up there with Budapest, Barcelona, Krakow and Hvar. What can I say Germany ... I am now a fan!!
Although this has always been something I wanted to do there are SOOOOOOOO many destinations on my travel list that Germany really wasn't ranking very highly in comparison to the likes of Central America and South East Asia. But then I went on a Busabout tour of Eastern Europe and a few people on our bus had been and kept raving about how amazing it was and Busabout happened to have an Oktoberfest offer going at the time so it was literally get home from Croatia, request annual leave and book Oktoberfest!! I'm really impulsive when it comes to booking travel!
I was so excited about the trip but it amazed me how many people hadn't heard of Oktoberfest!! Its something that I've always known about and thought this was the norm. The basic history behind it (in a nutshell) is that a royal couple in Germany in the 1800s decided to get their country on board by celebrating their wedding in Munich and hosting a big festival and event with beer, horse races etc so that everyone felt part of the celebrations. The people loved it so much that they begged to celebrate the anniversary every year and although the horse races and other stuff got lost along the way its still celebrated today and is one of the biggest festivals on the planet and a tribute to all things Bavarian. Thankyou King Ludwig I and Therese for throwing such an awesome party!
So after an amazing summer I set off to meet my friend in Munich for some German beer-drinking shenanigans. Due to flight connections I got to our (freezing cold!) campsite the night before she did and had only been there a few minutes before I was told to grab a beer. They have beer vending machines in Germany!! No jokes!! Who needs Pepsi when you can have a giant can of Lowenbrau I guess! Anyway I took it easy the first night and just had two, which was probably a good call as its not easy to sleep in a tent in a campsite full of drunk people when its freezing cold. Once my friend arrived the next day we went to explore Munich city centre, which included shopping for Lederhosen and Dirndls and having dinner (sausages of course) and drinks (litres of beer) at a traditional beergarden. We tried on about 6 dirndls ... loved most of them (seriously these things are so flattering, they look good on anyone) and ended up spending 80 euros on a traditional Bavarian outfit which I don't think I'll ever pull off other than being a German beer maid at the next few fancy dress parties I'm invited to.
The next day we were up at 7 and queuing outside the beer halls before the doors opened at 9am. By 9.15 I was sitting at a table with a bunch of new friends, all kitted out in the finest Bavarian wear, with a giant 1 litre stein of beer in front of me. For breakfast. Normally the thought of that would make me sick but the atmosphere was so amazing that the time of day didn't matter (although you can spot the bags under our eyes in all the photos). The outfits were a good call ... all over Munich everyone was sporting them and you would have looked out of place in a beer hall without one. These tents are massive with between two and eight thousand people seated in each tent at any given time and everyone is all dressed up. Germany efficiency is brilliant too ... the toilets remain clean, anyone being a drunken idiot gets kicked out and if you don't have a seat you don't get service. If anything the only disappointing thing was that I expected to see a buxon blonde with massive boobs and braided hair serving my beer in order to live up to the stereotype but most of the woman were practically Amazonian and in their 40s and amazingly strong to be able to carry 10 steins of beer at any given time through a rowdy crowd. After the first one I needed two hands just to hold up one!! We had an awesome first day. The bands add to the atmosphere and everyone dances on the tables and clinks their steins together, whilst drunk people attempt to learn the lyrics to german beer drinking songs and nursery rhymes (the song repetoire is rather limited!). There's also plenty of food on offer which is great cos about 3 standard beers fit in each of those steins and the alcohol percentage is much higher than in the rest of Europe so after two you're already buzzing. Easily solved by eating ridiculous amounts of sausages, schnitzel, roast chickens, pork knuckles and pretzels ... german cuisine really isn't friendly to waistlines. There's also a massive theme park surrounding the tents in case you get bored of beer and dancing (not likely!) and feel you can resist the urge to spew on the rollercoasters.
The best thing about the festival is the atmosphere. Someone I know calls it the happiest place on earth and that sums it up pretty well. Its like Disneyworld for adults but with more alcohol. On the second day we went beer tent hopping. It was later in the day and the tents were largely full so we had to gatecrash tables to get served because of the table service rule. This meant we met a ton of Germans, Austrians, Romanians, Italians etc ... all of whom welcomed us onto their table, clinked their glasses and shared laughs, dances and stories with us. There was one couple who even told us how they'd met at Oktoberfest 7 years ago, got married the following year and go back every year for their anniversary. Cute! All this whilst dancing in dirndls to german folk music on benches drinking beer in the middle of the day. So awesome.
So basically if you can do it go!!!! I'd love to go again some day. And don't worry if you don't like beer ... German beer tastes different to the stuff on tap at home. Less gassy and much more flavoursome. Loved the Augustiner brewers and the Paulaner Weissbier was immense!
The trip was also an eye opener. Germany is an amazing holiday destination. Munich and Bavaria were gorgeous with its castles and culture and I decided to extend my stay for an extra week and explore Berlin, which I fell in love with. I went on my own (which everyone should try at least once) and met some amazing people in the city and consumed even more beer and sausages. The city is steeped with history and culture - I went to 4 museums in one day and wasn't remotely bored ... A royal castle, a museum on Nazi occupation, world war II history ... all amazingly interesting. Then there's the beautiful buildings and the bohemian atmosphere of East Berlin with its street beggars asking for weed money and graffiti on every corner. Not to mention the nightlife ... we went to a ping pong bar (not the Thai type - one where drunk people play competitive ping pong), a gothic metal bar, a hippy bar, an underground drum n bass club and a commercial house club in the same night - on a Thursday. Its now one of my favourite European cities right up there with Budapest, Barcelona, Krakow and Hvar. What can I say Germany ... I am now a fan!!
#78 - ACHIEVED
- Difficulty: 3/10 (Flights are expensive and if you'd rather do hotels than camp then prepare to fork out some cash)
- Thrill factor: 7/10 (Was so excited the entire time and I didn't even try any of the rollercoasters)
- Sense of acheivement/fulfilment: 7/10 (lived up to my expectations 100%)
- Recommend to a friend: 10/10 (If I could go every year I would)
