We took a six hour train ride from Ljubljana to Munich on Thursday 26 September and were greeted at the station by my beautiful ‘great cousin’ (my dad’s mum’s brother’s daughter’s daughter).
Tanja was our tour guide for the afternoon and took us to see characters dance around the glockenspiel (carillon) at Neues Rathaus before a stroll in the Residenz gardens.
We ate dinner at Max Pett, Tanja’s favourite vegan restaurant in Munich, and the food was delicious! No animals were harmed in the making of our meals and even Ed enjoyed his tofu!
We woke up early Friday morning and quickly dressed / squeezed into our dirndl / lederhosen in preparation for a day of bier, wurst and gemütlichkeit (cheer and good times) at Oktoberfest!
Tanja picked us up at 9am and recommended a traditional German breakfast to line our stomachs for the festival. She also advised that I tie my dirndl on my right hip, rather than at my back, to indicate that I was no longer a ‘single lady’. What would we do without her?
After breakfast we joined the zillions of Bavarian wannabes and traditionalists on a pilgrimage to the Theresienwiese grounds where the beers were already flowing.
We arrived at the grounds and passed countless stores filled with gingerbread, chocolate dipped fruit, sugar coated nuts and other fructose filled temptations on our way to the hangar sized beer ‘tents’ / halls. It’s hard to believe they’re not permanent structures!
Ed made the sensible decision to try a couple of wild rides and roller coasters before his first stein but unfortunately his lederhosen weren’t quite up for the challenge and he tore a hole in his crotch on the first ride of the day! More room for beer, I say!
Keen to get in the swing of things Ed purchased a wurst and a pink ‘ich liebe dich’ (‘I love you’) gingerbread for me before we entered the Löwenbräu beer tent for a stein (or two)!
Tanja managed to nab us great seats on the first floor balcony and promptly ordered our first round. We swayed along to ‘Ein Prosit Der Gemütlichkeit’ and chugged our beers on eins, zwei, drei, g’suffa!
Our vantage point provided great people watching opportunities – big bosomed wenches carried up to 11 steins of beer and platters of roast chicken through the crowd, girls (and one guy!) in dirndls joined the band on stage and the somewhat inebriated masses cheered on as people stood on benches to down their stein in one go!
I managed to drink a whole stein (my first ever!) and was thankful when a fellow beer drinker offered their pretzel after my final chug to soak up some of the beer.
After lunch we ventured out to explore the grounds and some of the other beer tents. Without a reservation it proved impossible to find a seat so we took a spin on a roller coaster, ate another wurst and made a start on my gingerbread before heading home.
Oktoberfest 2013 – 6.7 million steins of beer!
Kate – 1 stein of beer! Boom tick!
1<3 Europe 