OKTOBERFEST!!!!

Last year during Oktoberfest we were transitioning from our apartment in Freising to our house in Unterschleissheim. There was a lot going on and we were still trying to settle in and figure out exactly what we had done. Going into a crowd at Oktoberfest was not where we wanted to be in 2013. We almost skipped it again in 2014. The whole crowd and lines and effort to get there was just not sounding too fun. It has been a pretty busy time and we were able to avoid the topic for most of the 16 days of the festival. Finally on the last day we sucked it up, dressed in our Bavarian best outfits and headed into Munich.

It really was not too bad getting there. We took the train from our local stop to the last stop before you get to the central station. From there it is a ten minute walk to the south to get to the Theresienwiese. This is the area in the middle of Munich set aside to host Oktoberfest each year. To me it is incredible how much land is set aside for this two week event. Take a look at this Google Earth image. You can see the Theresienwiese grounds and where it is related to the Munich city center. This land area is almost as large as the historical city center of Munich. Can you see the sort of circular area to the east northeast of the Theresienwiese? That is the Munich city center. You can see the huge central train station just to the north northeast of the Theresienwiese. It looks small compared to this land mass. 

I think this is the main entrance. It is the north entrance. We were there early and there was already tons of people. 

I knew Oktoberfest was big, it had to be to get six or seven million visitors packed in over a two week period. I had no idea it was this big. In my mind I had envisioned a few rides for the kids, otherwise huge beer tents. Not so much. They had a lot of rides and the rides were much bigger than I anticipated.

Walking a little further we did come across several beer tents. They are not really tents though. These places look like permanent structures from the outside facade.

There are six major beer brands in the city of Munich. Hofbrau, Paulaner, Spaten, Augustiner, Hacker-Pschorr, and Lowenbrau. All of which are represented with their own tents.

We did not spend too much time looking around at this point. Our goal was to get there early and let the kids have some fun on the rides before they got too busy.

David got knocked around on the bumper cars on the way to the big rides. Katherine was not up for another head on collision, so she sat this one out.

David was on the Alpina Bahn coaster next while Katherine rode a couple of smaller rides. These bumper cars are a little more her speed.

Another distraction on the way to the next roller coaster. Katherine really had fun on this slide. It was big. The below shot I was still zoomed in pretty far.

Now we are talking. I have never even heard of a five loop coaster. This one with the Olympic themed loops was so great. I did not ride because it was 7 euro for an adult. David rode it and said it was a combination of the Titan and the Shock Wave at Six Flags Over Texas. I was very impressed with the rides and with the efficiency of the lines. David was on and off of this in no time, and only took a couple of minutes on any of the big rides.

We were thinking about Granddad today on his birthday. I told him that we were celebrating for him by going to Oktoberfest. It was really starting to get crowded now.   

The kids rode a few more rides and checked out some fun houses. Now we had to find some souvenirs and get the heck out of Dodge.

I did not get a very good picture of the horse drawn wagons full of beer kegs. Each brand of beer had the horses suited up riding around the area and taking pictures. It was another fun part, and we did get close to the horses later.

Believe it or not we did not sit down and have a liter of beer. All of the tents were overflowing with people and the crowds were crazy. We were there on a mission to see it and experience it. We have been to enough other smaller festivals in Bavaria to know what it is like to sit at a table in a beer tent with the music and beer. I had to get at least one picture of the inside of one.

We made several stops on the way out to find the perfect keepsakes. We also had to try some of the food vendors on the way out. Most of them had the same Bavarian stuff that we are used to, but it was still good. Below is a picture of the pedestrian walkway long after we had left the gates. It does not do justice to show just how many people were streaming in to the place as we were leaving. I think that we did good to go early and get out of there.

Another benefit of going on the last day, some of the vendors were giving discounts. Katherine saw this huge raccoon when we first arrived and was hyper-focused on it the entire time. On the way out we stopped to look at it, without asking the lady gave us a good deal off of the posted price. Katherine got what she wanted, David got to ride all of the big rides, the way he likes it.

We had a smooth trip back home and had a restful rest of the day. We are so glad that we decided to go. Even David was thanking us for "making him go". He said Oktoberfest was awesome.