6 months To See The World: Munich during Oktoberfest

Munich in Autumn is awesome.

The leaves turn a bright yellow, there is a crispness in the air, and there is Oktoberfest.

Welcome to Oktoberfest greets you at the train station

We participated directly in the spectacle that is Oktoberfest for 1 of our 4 days in Munich, but were surrounded by it everywhere we went. People from all over the world had flocked to this Bavarian city for the famous autumn festival and everybody was in a good mood. Much to my delight, they also dressed the part! All shapes and sizes of people speaking all sorts of languages were dressed in the traditional liederhosen and drindls. Working men and women (waitresses, train ticket purveyors, children and adults riding the metros) were all dressing up in the traditional garb. It's clear the locals enjoy this time as much as the tourists.

Dressed up for the occasion!

Everybody got into the spirit

I met two friends in Munich: Chris L. flew in to travel with me for 10 days, and we met up with one of my college friends, Julia, who was finishing her trip through Germany with her boyfriend, also named Chris. Our AirBnB host was kind enough to leave us some good German beer as a welcoming gift, so I was able to greet Chris L with a beer for breakfast when he arrived.

Residenz - one of many glamorous rooms

Because Chris had landed so early in the morning, we were able to see a bunch of the attractions in the middle of town on the first day. We strolled down the pedestrian boulevard from Karlsplatz to Merienplatz. Along the way, we admired the Frauenkirche, which was unfortunately shrouded in scaffolding for restoration. We stopped for a bite on the grassy lawn by Merienplatz before wandering through the huge Residenz with audioguides glued to our ears, admiring the bombed and rebuilt seat of the King Ludwigs. And we finally wandered the enormous English Gardens where we stumbled onto a bumping beergarden.

Frauenkirche inside

Of course we each ordered a large German beer and chowed down on spatzle and bratwurst, chatting with a couple of young German guys who were eager to practice their English. They taught us that Germans don't call the big beer mugs steins! Apparently that word is reserved for the traditional clay versions of a beer mug. A large beer mug is called a Masskrug (or a Mass for short). Good thing we got the right vocab before going to Oktoberfest!

The Rathaus

I don't know if it was just the festival or if everybody is always this happy in Munich, but we had no trouble making friends any time we sat down at a beer garden. It was a running theme throughout the 4 days we were in Munich: grab a beer and enjoy the conversation that starts up with your next door neighbors.

1st stop on the self-directed bike tour
Home to Bayern Munich

Munich has a lot to offer tourists, and we could have continued to visit palaces, world class museums, or historical WWII sites for a weeks. But Chris's entire face lights up like the sun when you mention bicycles. So we elected to rent bikes and go visit a small town called Friesing outside of Munich on Day 2. Friesing is a cute little town that boasts the oldest brewery in Germany. It was a gorgeous day for riding. On the way out of town, we stopped by Allianz Stadium, home to the famous Bayern Munchen soccer club. (Chris and I both share a love of soccer, so walking around the famous venue was a treat.)

Then it was a little bit of a jog through town and a University campus to get to a path along the Isar river where we rode the rest of the way to Friesing. The weather could not have been better and the scene was gorgeous - we were peddling down a tree-lined river bank under huge canopies that were turning a bright yellow. I thoroughly enjoyed the ride, but will never again casually volunteer for a long distance bike ride with a triathaloner!

This was the view most of
the way - me trying to keep up

Eventually we made it to the monastary where Weihenstaphan beer is brewed and enjoyed a late lunch at the top of the hill showcasing the land we just pedaled over. Unfortunately we lingered a little too long, enjoying the local brew and had to peddle hard all the way back so we could meet up with Julia that night for dinner. All together, we biked somewhere between 70 and 80km (45-50 miles) roundtrip. My legs were a little rubbery for a while.

The Isar river, entering Friesing

Picnic lunch at the brewery

A monastery that has brewed beer
for centuries

Julia brought us together with another friend of hers that now lives in Munich, and he brought 3 of his friends that are in the Army with him. So the 8 of us made plans to all meet up for Oktoberfest bright and early Saturday morning. Thanks to some scouting, Chris and I already knew that:

This day would be the last Saturday of the festival and a bank holiday, so the crowds would be huge. (The bank holiday was the 25^th anniversary of the reunification of East and West Germany).
You would only be served beer if you were sitting at a table. That means you have to find a spot at a table.
The beer tents were the place to be – they had the bands and the food and the atmosphere Oktoberfest is famous for. They are also the only places where you can get beer. (I call them tents because that’s what the Germans call them. But they are massive structures with hard walls, decorations and multiple stories. .Julia said it takes them 8 weeks to set the “tents” up for the festival.)
The beer tents would only let people in until they got full, then it would be 1-in-1-out policy unless you had reservations (which we didn’t). So you have to get into the tent before it got full.
Most tables inside the beer tents are reserved 6-12 months in advance. The few tables set aside for non-reserved people fill up quickly. Remember, no table, no beer for you.
We had it on good authority that you have to show up when the tents open if you wanted to get a seat without a reservation.

That's how I found myself in front of a beer tent, dressed in a drindle and eating a pretzel at 10AM the next morning. God bless the Germans – did you know they have a word in their language that means “beer for breakfast”? Even at 10AM, we could not even get into the famous Haufbrau tent, but our resourceful Army companions got us a table inside Lowenbrau’s. Sorry - no incriminating pictures on the blog.

The Haufbrau "tent"

Inside the Lowenbrau tent (band in center)

Oktoberfest is everything you expect. Beer and pretzels flow freely and everybody makes friends with everybody around them. There is a polka band in the middle of the massive beer tent that inspires the whole crowd to jump on their benches and dance and sing along whenever the horns start playing. It was a blast.

My lovely friend Julia and her Chris

Dinner that night was with Julia, Chris and Chris’s family at a traditional German restaurant. Julia’s Chris and his brother had both studied abroad in Germany, and we connected with one of their “brothers” from the family that had been a host family. It was a very cool to see the way they keep in touch over 20 years later.

Our last morning in Munich was spent dodging rain. We dropped our bags at the train station and high-tailed it to the Deutches [Science] Museum which is huge and well-constructed. It was neat seeing the aerospace portion with Chris, since he works in the industry. It was a perspective I would not have been privileged to otherwise. I also really enjoyed the shipping portion of the museum, to see the evolution of sailing vessels built by the professionals. We ate lunch overlooking the moving figures of the Rathous’s bell tower, and eventually landed at the Haufbrau restaurant before catching the night train to Florence. Once again, the folks sharing their table with us were friendly and fun.