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Published: August 5th 2009
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Prost!
Traice, Ellen, Brent, Billie & Hannah enjoy a Stein! Oktoberfest: A weekend of German beer, German food, and more German beer!
It’s my third year running, and it’s still not lost its appeal
Billie, Brent & I flew into Salzburg in Austria to meet up with Tracie, Ellen & Co for a little sightseeing before Munich. Salzburg is such a beautiful city, both day and night, I think it looks like somewhere out of a fairytale.
We had a wander around the old town and found an authentic Austrian pub to try some local beers - a bit of a warm up for the days ahead 😊
We had just enough time to do a bit of exploring the following morning and looked at the beautiful Mirabell Gardens before we caught the train up to Munich, in Germany.
Personally I think Oktoberfest is fantastic - and I don’t even like beer that much!
The whole atmosphere is contagious - you can’t help but have a good time. Everyone is very friendly and at least 95% of the people I’ve meet over the last 3 years have been either German or Austrian - you really feel like you’re apart of their tradition.
There are 14 main ‘tents’, which
The Hills Are Alive..!
In gardens where part of The Sound of Music was filmed are like semi-permanent large beer drinking halls, with their own signature beer. The tents are decorated from top to toe and each one very different - well worth a look!
However, the beer tents only take up half of the park, the rest is covered by carnival rides, food stalls, souvenirs and the odd wine or schnapps bar (in case you don’t want more beer!)
My favourite has to be the fruit on a stick covered in chocolate - simple, but Ohhhh so good!
But there are more important things to think about - we are here for one reason after all. And there is nothing better than sitting in the sun drinking a pure German beer - and since they serve them in a 1L stein at a time, you’re not going anywhere in a hurry. In fact I need both hands just to lift the stein! So sit back, relax and ‘Prost’ to you!
On Saturday we travelled out to Andechs Beer Monastery which is located at the top of a hill in a small rural German village. The monks used to brew beer here since the middles ages and it shows. The beer
Beer anyone?
One of the many beer tents at Oktoberfest was very good, the views across the valley were amazing, and they apparently serve the best pork knuckle the boys had ever tasted!
Meanwhile Billie & I were quite partial to the applebeer. Mmmm!
In a strange turn of events, Billie & I got roped in to singing the German national anthem with a stag (dress in a German female Dirdl!) in front of a group of on lookers - rather embarrassing when you don’t know German or what the tune is meant to be! haha
Sunday night was closing night at Oktoberfest, which means come evening everyone, including the workers are ready to party!
It’s also a great opportunity to score some of the best seats on the house, which are impossible to get during the rest of the festival.
The next day Billie, James and I headed out to see the amazing Neuschwanstein Castle - the same castle that Disneyland is based on!
Unfortunately I had picked up a stomach bug that was going around the campsite, so while everyone else was enjoying the 19th Century furniture and fresco paintings - I was constantly trying to find the nearest rubbish bin or open window so I
didn’t repaint these priceless items!
I managed to survive the castle tour without incident, and we headed further up into the mountains to a large swing bridge that straddles across a deep gorge and provides the iconic views back across to the magically castle.
A fantastic way to end the trip!
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