Oktoberfest!

This past weekend we did Oktoberfest in traditional (Marc) Skinner fashion - without a plan!! So here is the story . . .

I've been wanting to see the Munich Oktoberfest for quite some time. Just a cultural thing. Dirndls, Lederhosen, Bier. What other reason do you need? As this year was the last easy or convenient year to experience Oktoberfest, we planned to take it in while I was still in Texas this summer. Now, when I say "planned", I really mean Catherine and I spoke about it and she agreed to go with the caveat that had something more concrete than "Munich Oktoberfest on Saturday". We also wanted to see the Cannstater Volksfest in Stuttgart, which we decided to do in the same weekend.

Catherine took care of the housing (hotel), I was in charge of the other stuff. Yeah right.

My idea of a "plan" was to drive to Munich and search for the Bier tents. Turns out that plugging in city center for Munich into the GPS doesn't quite get you to the Theriesenwiese platz - where the fest is held. We had to stop at a hotel (after parking on the street in downtown Munich) and ask for directions. The concierge was incredibly helpful. He steered us to the subway, told us which station to get out at, and where to find the kids if we got separated.

There were 500,000 people at the 200th Oktoberfest in Munich last Saturday. I'm guessing the majority were crammed into the Bier tents, but there were still loads of folks just wandering around. Anyways, we made our way to the festival grounds and walked around a good bit. We looked at some of the rides, but pushed that off until the next day in Stuttgart. I got to sample some of the beer, then we all picked out some Souvenirs. Now we can say we've done the biggest Oktoberfest in the world.

The photo above is of the Cannstater Volksfest in Stuttgart. It is the second largest Oktoberfest in the world. I planned this one just as well as the Munich one. I basically knew it was in Stuttgart, and that was it. Thankfully the concierge at the hotel knew where to look for an address for our GPS. It got us there - but man was it a long walk to and from the car.

There was a parade coming into the park at the entrance we walked to, which was a ton of old farm wagons loaded with casks of beer, flowers, pumpkins - all sorts of things. A couple of the horse-drawn wagons went a different way through the park which must not have been too enjoyable for the horses, as they stampeded just a little bit (people were leaping out of the way for about 25 yards before the horses were brought under control). I've never seen anything like that before, and I'm glad we were behind the horses when that happened.

So now we can say we've seen the two largest Oktoberfests in the world. Yeah!! Munich was so worth it, I'm glad we went. However, Stuttgart was definitely more family-friendly and quite a bit smaller. And therefore easier to explore.

I hope everything is well with everyone out there! Cheers,

Marc