I stepped onto the train platform on Saturday morning in Ulm on my way to Munich and it was filled with people drinking beer and wearing lederhosen and dirndls. There were two trains leaving around the same time, one to Stuttgart and one to Munich, and I soon realized something very telling. Most everyone that spoke German that was dressed in the traditional clothing was going to Stuttgart and anyone that spoke English, got on the Munich train, including me (although I was not in the garb, yet. Or drinking, yet).
On my arrival I headed to the city center and met up with two of Kris’s mates from Australia. I had my first German beer. It was not my last.
We rented three AirBnB’s and a few others got hotel rooms so the day was spent at a corner pub waiting for everyone to gradually arrive. There was a core group of fifteen that were there for the full four days and three others that made an appearance for a portion. The first night we went to dinner at Augustiner-Keller, a very large traditional German restaurant and ate schnitzels and sausages in an old beer storage cellar. How German.
Day two was our “healthy” day. We were getting out of Munich and doing a hike. We jumped on a train and traveled for an hour to the lake town of Herrsching. From there we hiked to Kloster Andechs, a monastery in a castle-like building. Oh, it also happens to have a brewery. There we had a few beers and ate amongst other things, pig knuckles. That night we had a private dinner at a steakhouse and celebrated Kris’s birthday.
Now that we had two days of drinking in Munich to warm us up, it was finally time for Oktoberfest. We had reservations for a table at the Haufbrau tent from 12-5. A German friend told me beforehand to be careful because for some reason the beers at Oktoberfest hit a little bit harder. That seems to be true.
Seeing the servers bring the quantity of 1 liter steins to the table was impressive. Seeing us drink them down was equally so. The question was, would we make it past 3 or 4 o’clock, or even 5. We did. However, I personally can’t say much about what we did after 5 o’clock because…I can’t remember. I believe the total beers for the 16 of us was 122 liters (you do the math, it ain’t pretty).
As you can expect, the next day was a recovery day. We spent the day in various ways touring Munich but of course eventually ended up having beers at the corner pub and kebabs for dinner. How German.
I left Munich in style, in the passenger seat of a Porsche 911. Several people from the group were following up Oktoberfest with a motorcycle/sports car cruise through the Austrian/Swiss/Italian Alps. I joined one friend who was just doing the first day, on the ride to Salzburg. Besides hitting 209 on the autobahn and putting a big smile on his face, we saw some very picturesque Bavarian/Austrian alpine villages. In Salzburg we went to another monastery that, hmm, had a beer garden and food court. Wow, these monks know how to live.
The next day my friends were going to Linz which is on the way to Vienna, or so I thought. In reality they were going to Lienz which also exists, it has an “e”, and is far from and in the opposite direction of Linz. I was headed to Vienna the following day so when I found all this out, as I was walking to the train station, my plans changed a bit (I blame Kris since he was never pronouncing the “e” but I’m sure he’ll deny it). I ended up taking advantage of my extra day in Salzburg by wandering around the city to explore it further.
Then it was on to Vienna, the last stop of my friends tour.
Life is good.