Oktoberfest Munich

So on Saturday, September 27th, we headed to the biggest and oldest Oktoberfest in Germany, Munich.  It is also the largest festival in the world.  We had been planning on coming for over 9 months because if you don't there is no way you will find a place to stay.

 

Here we are trying to figure out the best route into the city by train.  There was no way we wanted to drive in there because there would have been no parking.  Before we head into the festivities a little history.  On October 12, 1810 Crown Prince Ludwig married the Princess  of Teresa of Sassonia-Hildburghausen.  All the citizens of Munich were invited to attend the celebration held in the fields in front of the city gate to celebrate the happy royal event.  The closing ceremony at the party included a horse race, a veritable feast for the whole of Bavaria, the following year the decision to repeat the horse races gave rise to the origin of the Oktoberfest tradition.  In 1960 the horse races were stopped and the big fair you see today.

 

We decided once we got to Munich to follow the crowd and we were probably going in the right direction.

 

Though the signs do help and Steve was helpful enough to point it out!!

 

Headed up the escalator to enter the Oktoberfest!

 

Look, they even have a wonderful sign for us! 

 

 

So this is the crowd when we showed up at 10 am.  You can still see some holes, etc.

 

David and I in front of the Paulaner tent.  These big beer tents weren't started until 1896, due to an initiative by the hosts in collaboration with the brewers.  In 1913, the Braurosl was built, the largest tent with 12,000 seats.  In 1910 a record 120,000 liters of beer was sold, now over six million liters of beer are sold every year.

 

This is the crowd that kept coming and coming and coming.  I had to wait till 11 before I could go into the tent because they didn't allow backpacks.  So I was able to see all of the people streaming in.

 

AJ was amazed by the size of the beer that it was the size of his head!!!

 

David with his first beer in the Pulaner tent!  He is so handsome!!!

 

They had two layers of seating in this tent!

 

The boys were able to have 1/2 liters of pop.  They all thought it was so cool!!!  I think the biggest pop they have ever had!

 

 

I finally made it into the tent!!!  YEAH!

 

If you stood up on the chairs you had to chug whatever was left in your beer.  This guy had a full one when he started to chug and was able to chug the whole thing!  If you don't, you get booed and things thrown at you.

 

The girls!!  I was the only one who didn't like beer, but had to pose with one.  :-)

 

The boys!!!  They were having so much fun together!!!

 

 My boys!!!  I love them all!!!!

 

This is how they carry the liters of beer.  It is truly amazing how many beers they can carry at once.  This wasn't even the most that we saw!

 

And there are all sorts at these festivals.  This guy stuck his face on the window and stayed there until AJ took his picture.

 

The crew in the tent!!!

 

As you were walking out of the tent you saw this huge pig!  Each tent has different beers, serves different food and different decoration and bands.  After about three hours in the tent our children were thoroughly bored, so we decided to head out and let them do some rides.

 

Most of the kids didn't want to do the same ride, so there was a bit of standing and waiting, but the kids did have a great time.  Here are AJ and Jack riding a roller coaster.

 

Jack, AJ and Michael on a spinning top.  They all said they loved it!

 

Next up the swings, AJ, Michael and Nate rode this one.  You can see AJ's orange shirt and Michael and Nate are in front of him.  As you can see it goes up really, really high.

 

AJ and Michael wanted to try on different Oktoberfest hats - they look so cute!

 

They each were able to play one game.  They both choose a shooting game.  AJ hit eight out of ten shots.

 

Michael hit six out of ten.  They both did a great job!!!

 

And for that Michael won some vampire teeth.

 

My boys decided they needed hats like Jack and Joey.  The four boys looking good!!!!

 

We did the conga line through the crowds to try and stay together!!

 

There were many out there trying to make some money.  He was pretty good.

 

We headed out around 5:30 pm and there were still crowds coming in.  They did not stop coming the whole day.

 

Truly amazing how many people came, they say about 6.3 million guests during the Oktoberfest.  They said about 112 oxen, 48 calves and 6.4 million liters of beer were consumed in 2014.  Tent security stopped a dazzling 112,000 people from taking their mug home with them.

 

A view from our apartment after we arrived home.  It was a great day and we were all exhausted on the train ride home.  We wanted to experience the oldest Oktoberfest and we did.  It was fun, but the box is now checked and am ready for the next adventure!