One could hardly visit Germany during the season of Oktoberfest and not take in the event! We went to the Oktoberfest parade in Munich, which is really homebase for Oktoberfest in Germany. We took a bus from our resort because traffic and parking in Munich during Oktoberfest is insane. We were there on Sunday the 20th of September. Oktoberfest officially opened the preceding Friday. Oktoberfest is a celebration with beer-drinking at its core.
Every major beer company in Germany has a "tent" at the fairgrounds in Munich. A "tent" is really a very large building with multiple levels for seating (see the first photo). One must have a ticket/reservation to get seated in a tent. A total of seven tents are said to be capable of seating 100,000 people. They were overflowing while we were there. During the Oktoberfest period in Munich 6 million gallons of beer will be consumed.
Other aspects of Oktoberfest include what we would call a carnival. There is every kind of carnival ride that you can imagine! There were a number that we'd never seen before.
The other major feature of the festival is food, primarily German specialties such as brats.
One day during Oktoberfest there is a major parade. This year the parade was on the day we attended. There were MANY bands--we believe most are community bands--however, some included school age participants. There are also many huge horses pulling wagons from the primary beer distillers. All of the large well-known beer companies, such as Lowenbrau, had six-horse hitches very much like our Budweiser teams in the parade. Each was more impressive than the next!
1 comment:
Hi. I found your site while doing a search on our trip to Germany for my husbands R&R. We are spending some time at the Edeliwiess also. My qustion is, where did you stay in Munich during Oktoberfest? We will also be there at that time. I have been looking and all hotels/pensiones i have found are SO expensive!
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