So although the flight was cheap there was a catch. The Frankfurt airport they fly into is Frankfurt Hahn airport. This Frankfurt airport is 77 miles from Frankfurt. We took an hour and 45 minute bus ride from the airport to the train station in Frankfurt.
Our hotel was right across the street from the train station. The Excelsior Hotel was nice. Large room at the back of the Hotel and was very quiet. We did not spend much time there. The Excelsior Hotel is the antithesis of RyanAir. They did not charge for anything extra. The Mini bar had sodas, juice, water and beer – free of charge. There were snacks in the lobby. They had a business center with eight computers plus places to plug in your laptop for internet, all free. Breakfast was also included.
After settling in the hotel we walked around the city area. Frankfurt is on the Main River. We walked over a very nice pedestrian bridge and down a park area by the river. It was a nice first evening in Germany.
Germany Day 2 Oktoberfest
The morning train from Frankfurt to Munich left at 6:56. It was dark for the first part and rainy enough for the second part of the three hour ride that it was difficult to see through the rain streaked windows. We also had aisle seats in a compartment with six seats and a table. That meant if I was to look out one side I might be mistaken for staring at one of the other passengers or perhaps worse I may have been thought to be reading some of the top secret emails and spreadsheets being displayed on the softly lit computer screens of our three piece suited traveling companions. The fact that I do not read German would, I am certain, elude them until after they beat me senseless in a fit of Bavarian rage. (Sorry about that. I have been reading a Dean Koontz novel.)
The point is I did not see a great deal on the train ride.
The train on the return trip enjoyed idyllic weather for late September in Germany. The sun was setting in a partly cloudy sky. We glided through green pastures with the occasional small town sprinkled in to break up the monotony of the pastoral landscapes.
It took a couple of towns before I could solve the puzzle of why the towns, while beautiful, had some quality that seemed just a bit a skew from what I was used to seeing in other places. The solution to the puzzle came to me.
Each small town had a church steeple rising up from somewhere near the town center. The houses and small apartment or duplexes were all lovely. Some were big and some small, some had large lots, some were sardine-like. Then it struck me. Every house, every church, everything in every town I saw for the first hour was painted the same shade of white. Usually the tile roofs (everyone I saw was tile) were the same color of red or brown; this varied in each town but within the town there was little variation in roof color.
What to make of this? I allowed myself to hypothesize:
1) There is one very large subdivision with very strict homeowner bylaws.
2) Walmart had a huge sale on white paint.
3) Keeping up with the Schmidt family has gotten wildly out of hand.
4) Social conformity is alive and well in the Bavarian countryside.
5) What are your theories?
Oktoberfest http://www.oktoberfest.de/en/index.php
We arrived in Munich and bought a map of the city and made our way the short distance to the Weisen area. We were not alone on this trip. The Weisen is a large park area with what they call large tents. They are really like park buildings with tent roofs. The floors are wooden. They have fancy decorations and are sponsored breweries.
Some of the tents are small holding 600 to a thousand people. Others hold over 9000 people inside with a few thousand more outside.
When we arrived at 11:00 after the short walk to the Weisen from the bahnhof (not to be confused with the flughofen or the busbahnhof) the tents were just starting to come to life. We had read the description on the internet of the various tents. Some were described as having young crowds with rock and roll music. Some were said to be family friendly. Some were said to have a mature crowd. We narrowed it down to two. We found one and it was open but there were only 500 or so people there at 11:30. We asked a nice lady if we needed reservations and she said the area in the middle near the band was open seating.
We selected a seat at one of the tightly packed long picnic table with benches. We selected one at the outside rail so one side did not have a bench but a railing next to it.
We had the table to ourselves until almost noon. That was when the crowds started arriving. A group 20 something men came in and sat next to us, one of them looked very suspiciously like England's Prince William. Does anyone know if he speaks fluent German?
The Real Prince William
People sit down and wait for the staff to bring you food and drink. You pay when they serve you. We had coffee and hot chocolate to start. Fortunately they had English menus with German subtitles so we could point and grin. Our waitress did not speak English but we had little trouble. We order our lunches. Penny had roast pork with potato dumplings and cabbage salad. The potato things were rather bland and the sauce over the pork was needed. The cabbage salad was very nearly coleslaw of sorts, not the creamy kind. I ordered the farmer’s lunch. It was meat, lots of meat with sauerkraut. There was roast pork, ham, pork sausage, and a liver dumpling. There was also bacon crumbled on the sauerkraut. It was very good. The liver dumpling was like an ice cream scoop of liverwurst. I have been known to eat and enjoy liverwurst. I ate every bite. I promised not to eat the rest of the day. I shattered that promise about three hours later.
The brass band began arriving just before noon. At high noon they began to omppapa. They played two songs and then took a break (must be some union rule). The break was short and then the music continued. We listened for a while and then sat out to explore the other 14 tents. We were able to go in and walk around the outside of the central seating area, which is generally surrounded on the outside by small (25-75 seats) box seating areas which are almost always reserved. In some tents all tables are reserved.
It was interesting to see the different characters of the tents. By 2:00 the crowds were packing in. By 3:00 it was difficult to swim through the sea of humanity.
The waitresses and a very few waiters were working very hard to keep people supplied with food and beer. You may have seen pictures of waitresses carrying 10 or 12 litter mugs of beer. They really do that. They have 4 or 5 in each hand and sometimes 1 or 2 mugs balanced on top of those. I did not see or hear any dropped mugs.
The patters of food were almost as impressive. There are big food prep areas on one side of the tents where large rotisserie cookers were cooking chickens, ducks, and pork. Picture the ovens at Sam’s cub that cook 25 or so chickens. Now picture those ovens on steroids where 100 chickens in each of 3 or 4 ovens are being cooked. There is a lot of food. Oktoberfest is about beer but it also about food.
The tent temperament is salient. Some tents were filled with young folks having noisy fun in their beer hats (those tend to be the non-Germans). Many of the Germans were wearing Heidi style clothing. This was men and women. Our friend at Harlaxton from Germany said that people can pay thousands of Euros for these outfits. Think of it like the people in Dallas or Houston who only pull out and wear their cowboy boots and hats when the rodeo comes to town.
Other tents were filled with a mature clientele. These tents all were having fun but the difference was you could hear the music above the conversation in some of the tents.
There is a traditional song to spur the sale of beer. Almost every tent played this 10 second song. German national law evidently requires those drinking beer to stand up, hold the mug in the air and when the music stops you clink your mugs together with all your friends and the take a big swig of beer. Some go on and finish the beer and the bang the table to order another.
We stopped and sat outside a small tent (1000) and had apple strudel with cream. It was very good. It was quiet outside and was fun watching people.
At the far end of the Weisen was a huge area with lots of rides. These were Six Flags kinds of rides, not your traveling carnival rides. I am not sure the wisdom of folks drinking lots of beer and then paying someone to spin you in circles or drop you from 6 stories in the air.
On our walk back to the train station we went to Beethoven square which was on Goethe Strada. We had thought that we might see a statue of one of these people but found only this lady. She does not look like I thought Beethoven would look.
We were standing looking around (looking lost) when a lady stopped and said something in German (shocking). I asked if she spoke English and she said a little. She thought we were trying to find the Weisen. We said we had just come from there and I asked her if this was Beethoven plaza and she said yes. “Where is Beethoven?” She laughed and said he wasn’t there and then said and Goethe is not here either.
Contest 1: What does this German word mean?
Contest 2: What is this guy doing? (I don't know the answer to this one.)
It was a good day.
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