Octoberfest in September

"Beer is proof that God loves us and wants us to be happy." you would be hard pressed to find a truer quote, so after many a disgraceful effort at the UNSW Octoberfest, it was finally time for Greg and Hobbes to take on the real thing in Munich. Thinking that the British pints would have us in prime beer drinking form, it was with some confidence that we made the long journey out to Stansted to board our RyanAir chicken-bus on route to Friedrichshafen. It didn’t take too long for this misplaced confidence to be exposed, but you will have to wait for that…

Foggy Lake Constance and Friedrichshafen

Lake Constance

Anyways, the trip wasn’t just about beer, our Deutsch experience started several hundred kilometers from Munich in Friedrichshafen on the banks of Lake Constance. Not expecting much, it was a pleasant surprise to find out that Friedrichshafen reportedly has awesome views across the lake to Switzerland and the Alps. Reportedly, as a dense fog made sure that we saw none of this, although the intense grey-ness did give us a reassuring sense of home (London home that is).

The first border crossing of the day

From Friedrichshafen it was on to the 4 countries before lunch challenge as we headed south through Austria and Switzerland to Liechtenstein. We made it to Liechtenstein in time for lunch in a hill top village, a walk around the manically busy town center and a walk up to the castle by which the country maintains its principality status.

Church in Steg, Liechtenstein

Mass Transit, perhaps Sydney could learn something

Foolishly thinking we could make it across a pass back into Austria, we reached the end of the road at Liechtenstein’s one and only ski resort from where we were forced to back track down into the valley again. This turned into an extended delay as our progress was slowed by the fact that Liechtenstein’s dairy industry (ie. 15 cows) was being relocated on the same route. Anyways, in the process we covered just about all the surfaced road and all but one village within the whole country....

Liechtenstein's Castle

Kunstmuseum

Before long we had the Punto back on the autobahn headed towards Innsbruck. Just before St Antons we headed north towards Germany (making our 5th boarder crossing for the day), taking us through some spectacular alpine scenery before dropping into the Lech River valley.

Schloss Neuschwanstein

We fortunately made it to Fussen before dark, allowing us time to visit Neuschwanstein Castle in some resemblance of light. Neuschwanstein is the fairy tale castle of Baravaria’s favourite son Mad King Ludwig, with the location of the castle, perched a top a small hill testament to his madness (in either sense of the word).

And again...

Countryside near Fussen

Next day it was straight to Munich, in an effort to quench that hard earned thirst. Before hitting Octoberfest proper we met up with one of Greg’s German mates for a pre-beer and some inside knowledge of the places to be in Octoberfest 2006…

That's a big glass...

Arriving rather late, it was now a matter of trying to get into one of the beer tents (all of which seemed to be full). With a bit of the old side door action we were in and even managed to find a table and started on the masses… after the 3rd or 4th mass, I decided that the main problem with Germany was that their beer is too good. Normally by the time you got to the 4th or 5th litre you would begin to struggle, but not with the German gear, they go down TOO well…

...and that's a lot of people...

...and beers!

Much beer led to much singing and dancing (note to self, standing on tables is not a good idea) with our new found German mates (it is amazing how much your foreign language skills can improve after a beer). Perhaps unsurprisingly, from this point things unsurprisingly become a little unclear….. 'They've got these big chewy pretzels ghnyzlmmnnwtyluagrgghtyuioj 5 dollars? Get outta here’ kind of style….. perhaps the less said the better, except that after some unscheduled sight seeing, we awoke the next day to find that both Greg and Hobbes had at some point made it safely back in our room....

It wasn't just the photo that was blurry...

Unsurprisingly, Saturday wasn’t the most lively day of the trip, and a pretty poor effort was made with the breakfast pork knuckle... however we did still manage to see a fair bit of the old town and cover some decent territory, even if we didn’t feel up to another beer at the Hof Brau House. As night drew near, it was decided that another assault on Octoberfest was required, and after half a chicken each it was back on the beers, if only briefly.

The day after... a park in Munich

Of course there is heaps to Octoberfest that doesn’t involve beer, it could just as easily be referred to as a meat fest, such is the prevalence of chickens and pigs and sausages and schnitzels. The extent of carnival rides would put the now departed Australia’s Wonderland to shame, even more impressive when you consider that they are all temporary. Although, of course the rides do range in quality from the nauseating rotating, spinning type to the banal gently wobbling house type. In fact, there are essentially two festivals in one, the drunken rowdy fun within the tents and the family friendly fun-fair surrounding.

Some nice Smartcar parking action

Perhaps a little suggestive?

Munich is also home to the Allianz arena, the puffy little cloud esque stadium of Bayern Munich. Thinking we would be lucky to see the outside, we were surprised to find you could walk right up to it, and through it un-guided and un-security checked… so much for terrorism...

Allianz Arena

Bubbles

Having officially DONE Octoberfest, on Sunday it was off to Andechs, a monastery a couple of hours from Munich which has been brewing beer for some 400 years. It seemed that the rest of Bravaria's beer lovers who were trying to escape Octoberfest had also decided Andechs was a good option as it was quite packed. Not surprising really, as it has an awesome location perched a top a hill (what is it with Germans and hills), brews great beer and does a pretty handy schnitzel. The perfect end to the German experience you might say!

Check out the selection of beers at Andechs

From Andechs it was then quick run back to Friedrischafen via our first speed limit free Autobahn for the trip. It was a somewhat surreal experience to be flogging the guts out of the Punto doing 170km/hr and still feeling like you were going backwards as yet another Porsche passed us doing 100km/hr faster...