Flying visit to the Oktoberfest 08

Making assumptions based on the name of an event can leave you high & dry.

Last year, we casually let October pass us by, with all the best intentions of getting to Munich as some point during October to witness the Oktoberfest.  It was only somewhere in the last 3rd of the month that we realised that it was actually held in September and that we had missed the whole thing by a factor of weeks!

This year we were determined not to live within 400km of the biggest beer festival and to miss it for a second time.  Well, we nearly did again.

We again woke up to the fact that it was indeed October and that the coming week-end would be the closing week-end of the festival.  So, come Thursday and we are frantically trawling the web for accommodation for the week-end.

Saturday morning and it is freezing.  We join the throngs entering the grounds and are immediately stunned by the impression of a theme park rather than a beer festival.  There are more rides “than you can shake a stick at” and the girls very suddenly perk up.

We inevitably end up promising rides and subsequently spend most of the day with our stomachs upside down.     

This event brings out the pride of yesteryear, with every manner of traditional fashion on parade (when most of them should be kept in the closet or thrown out a few centuries ago).

We eventually made it into two of the great beer halls – although with kids in tow, we ended up taking a few snappies and then leaving it to the grown ups.  (We made a mental note to come back next year without the girls :))

Spot the jugs on the chick below…

Little tummies signalled “supper time” and we left the grounds in search of a restaurant.  I think we were scaring off the camera man or something.

And believe it or not, this was when we raised our first pint of beer for the day, in an Italian restaurant in Munich after leaving the world’s largest beer festival!

A frauline posing with the girls who though she was the most beautiful princess ever!Sunday, and off to the festival again.  More rides; still no beer!  And some very strange sights on the road!