Oktoberfest

How to sum it up?  Three days of drinking the hugest beers ever, with a bunch of Germans in Lederhosen and silly dresses! (Not at the same time, obviously).  We managed to see nothing of Munich except the underground, the road to our hotel and the Theresienwiese - the park where Oktoberfest is held.
When you first walk in the park it feels more like a big fairground than a beer festival, loads of rides, big rollercoasters (they were fun!), bumper cars, ghost trains, food stalls and souvenir tat.  Then you notice that there are a lot more adults than children, and in the occasional corner is a figure lying on the floor with others trying to help them.  Although, I will say this was a lot less frequent than I would expect from the amount of alcohol consumed. 

The beer tents are huge - several thousand people in each, and when you first shove your way in, you are assailed by the raucous noise of the drinkers.  It is all very good humoured, lots of singing along to the bands, standing on benches and clapping to encourage someone to down a litre in one go!  I could hardly hold one up, let alone drink it down in one.  At regular intervals the band strike up a popular drinking song which everyone gets up and swings their glasses to, the first time we looked slightly bewildered but after a bit more beer we did our best to join in.  The words were difficult to distinguish amongst several thousand drunken Germans so we made up our own lyrics - something along the lines of "My cosy, tea cosy, it keeps the teapot warm".  No-one seemed to mind as long as you clinked glasses and drank at the end. When we googled it the words are actually "Ein Prosit, ein Prosit, Der Gemütlichkeit", which translates (sort of) into "A toast, a toast, to cheer and good times". It encapsulates the general feeling of good cheer and friendliness.  Everyone is very friendly and wants to chat, and you share a long table with lots of others - it can get a bit of a squeeze.

The first evening we arrived, it was too busy in the tents to find a seat (some people apparently reserve tables a year in advance!), so we found a seat outside and proceeded to order beers - we hadn't realised beforehand that they only do 1 litre steins, but we made do....  Also, different from beer festivals back home, they only have one type of beer per tent, so if you want to try more than one you have to move, which can be problematic once you've found a seat!
Each tent has a price for the litre of beer of about 9.40 euros, but the staff don't bother about giving you change, so you pretty much pay 10 euros wherever you are!

After our first reconnoitre, we decided that to enjoy the bands and the atmosphere, the best idea was to arrive early and drink very slowly.  In all we managed to try four different tents some more exciting than others, on the last day we tried the Augustiner tent which turned out to be "more sedate" than some of the others.

 

 

 

After the beer drinking we tried the rides at the fair - even managed to get Vicki on some rides.  As the picture proves - not sure she liked me much after!

 

 

 

We did get a good deal on the public transport, as we managed to get a "Partner" day ticket which allows up to 5 people to travel on the one ticket for 10.20 euros each day, this covered the tube, the S-trains, trams and buses.  Plus, you can buy it in advance and then validate it on the day you travel. Much cheaper than the single tickets at 7.50 euros a go.

 

If you enjoy beer (the cold, fizzy type) in large quantities, like lots of noise, singing and crowds I would recommend Oktoberfest.  But is was quite nice to get back to normal size glasses afterwards. Cheers!