Oktoberfest

I wanted to go to Oktoberfest but there are absolutley no accomadations in or around Munich, which is where Oktoberfest is held every year. So I spent a day travelling around on the train, I took a train from Koblenz to Mainz which was a lovely trip along the Rhine. There were a few fortifications on the moutains along the Rhine and quaint villages along the river side, it was very scenic. I eventually wound up in Dusseldorf where I was catching a night train to Munich. I had a few hours to kill in Dusseldorf so I walked around, it was a nice city nothing really particular struck me about this city. It did have a interesting statue of Neptune killing some sort of fish. All in all, I had a fine time in Dusseldorf, I would probably have more to say if I spent more time there. Finally, the night train to Munich came and I was off.

It is not restful to sleep on a train, much like an airplane.

I made it to Munich and a spent some time looking around. There is a cathedral there with domes, instead of spires, on the two towers which was the fashion when it was built in the 1400's. It was cool because you could go up to the top of one of the towers and have a wonderful few of Munich, you could see Oktoberfest from there. I also saw the Residence and the Residence's Treasury. The Residence was the residence of the royal family of Bavaria, this family ruled Bavaria for more than 800 consecutive years, I don't know how long this place has been their residence. It is what you expect of a royal living quarters, very opulent as all the tours describe it. However, almost everything in the Residence has been reconstructed because it was destroyed during World War 2, some of the furniture and paintings had survived. I would have been impressed if I had to go to the Court there.

Then I made it to Oktoberfest, which is essentially a carnival with a lot of beer. I walked through some of the beer tents and there were a lot of people drinking and being drunk and it was only 4 in the afternoon. It was a cold, rainy day so I thought the crowds wouldn't be that large but I guess the rain just pushed them into the beer tents, it was standing room only if you were lucky enough to get in. After wandering through a few beer tents I bought a few beers and stood and watched, thats what you do when you can't sit down. There are large bands playing German folk music in each tent and in most there are people dancing around in their lederhosen, everyone wears lederhosen. I had a few beers and I stumbled upon some canadians, and luckily for me there were meeting some other canadians at a table they had acquired, so I joined them. It was a rowdy time full of litre beer stiens and pretzels. It is hard to go into detail because how do you describe beer drinking anymore throughly. There were by far more Germans there than I expected. I thought this was an international festival and there would be representation from all over the world, this was not the case and it is really a German celebration, originally for the marriage of their King but it soon became about beer. I should probably spend more time there before I make broad claims about the festival. It was a particularly fun time.

I had to leave relatively early, though I had spent four and a half hours there, because I had to catch the night train to Hamburg otherwise I would end up sleeping somewhere in the streets of Munich.

I slept like a log on the train.