Oktoberfest and travel with a bit of luxury
Oktoberfest is a festival that everyone should experience at least once in their life. Being fortunate enough to have experienced the happy spectacle three times now I can honestly say that it gets better with each visit. Perhaps that is because ‘you live and learn’ as they say, and every time we go we acquire some new knowledge of how to get about, where to go, what to avoid and what to enjoy.
Basically if Oktoberfest is not on your bucket list then make sure you write it down now. Being squashed around a wooden table with favourite friends inside a huge atmospheric tent, dressed in Bavarian fancy dress and drinking delicious cold lager whilst singing with interesting strangers, is an incomparable happy experience.
But a word to the wise, don’t linger too long, my friends and I once attempted three days on the trot and by the third we were so exhausted we couldn’t enjoy it anymore. You can sometimes have too much of a good thing.
Oktoberfest has been running since the end of the 19th Century when the citizens of Munich were all invited to a royal wedding reception which was held in fields in front of the city gates. The local residents now call the festival Wiesn which in general means meadow.
The event is basically comprised of hundreds of thousands of people roaming through a colourful carnival fairground that is bedecked with a variety of huge tents. And it’s noisy. It’s incredibly noisy.
One of the most amusing things about it for me is that each tent takes on its own personality created by the people that attend it. This is something that everyone should keep in mind as the choice of tent will make a difference to your experience. One is likely to be full of Australian backpackers, another with an older German crowd, and another with families; there’s even one favoured by celebrities, apparently Boris Becker is often there although unfortunately I’ve never seen him.
You have to plan everything carefully for a trip to Oktoberfest, making a table reservation is pretty much essential and luxury accommodation is hard to find as it gets booked up extremely early.
This year we were really clever and improved an already brilliant trip by arranging a posh car rental to transport us to the festival and around the city of Munich on another day. Of course we didn’t drive ourselves, who is going to designate themselves driver on a day when everyone starts drinking at ten o’clock in the morning? You’d have to be mad or just not go, and that wouldn’t be any fun at all. So we did it in style and hired a luxury BMW with a chauffeur, Frank, who was courteous and funny and had clearly done his homework with regard to traffic jams and meeting places.
This also meant we could stay further away from the city which ensured our choice of desirable hotels increased massively, and we blissfully avoided public transport on the way home. Boisterous singing in a fun tent with music and atmosphere is hilarious and heart-warming. On the underground at midnight crammed underneath someone’s armpit it isn’t quite so amusing.
And don’t forget the early kick off, you need to arrive at Oktoberfest at nine in the morning to que for the start, so it was great to avoid the crowds and arrive in style, completely relaxed. Admittedly renting this kind of car and the lovely Frank doesn’t come cheap but the happy benefits we gained were so worth the extra cost.
So some general tips for Oktoberfest virgins are: enjoy the delicious beer but pace yourself, it’s a long day and the beer is strong. Eat lots of the gorgeous Bavarian food and if you can possibly get there for the first day then do. Each year the first beer of Oktoberfest is traditionally poured in the largest tent which holds a massive ten thousand people, the deafening cheers that ensue are exhilarating.
So in 2013 we had a great time, and the third time wasn’t just lucky it was perfect. We danced, we sang, we had fun. We stayed at a gorgeous hotel and travelled first class. We did the whole trip in style; it was a bit of a wobbly style, but it was still style. You can find more information on the Oktoberfest at http://www.muenchen.de/int/en/events/oktoberfest.html
Basically if Oktoberfest is not on your bucket list then make sure you write it down now. Being squashed around a wooden table with favourite friends inside a huge atmospheric tent, dressed in Bavarian fancy dress and drinking delicious cold lager whilst singing with interesting strangers, is an incomparable happy experience.
But a word to the wise, don’t linger too long, my friends and I once attempted three days on the trot and by the third we were so exhausted we couldn’t enjoy it anymore. You can sometimes have too much of a good thing.
Oktoberfest has been running since the end of the 19th Century when the citizens of Munich were all invited to a royal wedding reception which was held in fields in front of the city gates. The local residents now call the festival Wiesn which in general means meadow.
The event is basically comprised of hundreds of thousands of people roaming through a colourful carnival fairground that is bedecked with a variety of huge tents. And it’s noisy. It’s incredibly noisy.
One of the most amusing things about it for me is that each tent takes on its own personality created by the people that attend it. This is something that everyone should keep in mind as the choice of tent will make a difference to your experience. One is likely to be full of Australian backpackers, another with an older German crowd, and another with families; there’s even one favoured by celebrities, apparently Boris Becker is often there although unfortunately I’ve never seen him.
You have to plan everything carefully for a trip to Oktoberfest, making a table reservation is pretty much essential and luxury accommodation is hard to find as it gets booked up extremely early.
This year we were really clever and improved an already brilliant trip by arranging a posh car rental to transport us to the festival and around the city of Munich on another day. Of course we didn’t drive ourselves, who is going to designate themselves driver on a day when everyone starts drinking at ten o’clock in the morning? You’d have to be mad or just not go, and that wouldn’t be any fun at all. So we did it in style and hired a luxury BMW with a chauffeur, Frank, who was courteous and funny and had clearly done his homework with regard to traffic jams and meeting places.
This also meant we could stay further away from the city which ensured our choice of desirable hotels increased massively, and we blissfully avoided public transport on the way home. Boisterous singing in a fun tent with music and atmosphere is hilarious and heart-warming. On the underground at midnight crammed underneath someone’s armpit it isn’t quite so amusing.
And don’t forget the early kick off, you need to arrive at Oktoberfest at nine in the morning to que for the start, so it was great to avoid the crowds and arrive in style, completely relaxed. Admittedly renting this kind of car and the lovely Frank doesn’t come cheap but the happy benefits we gained were so worth the extra cost.
So some general tips for Oktoberfest virgins are: enjoy the delicious beer but pace yourself, it’s a long day and the beer is strong. Eat lots of the gorgeous Bavarian food and if you can possibly get there for the first day then do. Each year the first beer of Oktoberfest is traditionally poured in the largest tent which holds a massive ten thousand people, the deafening cheers that ensue are exhilarating.
So in 2013 we had a great time, and the third time wasn’t just lucky it was perfect. We danced, we sang, we had fun. We stayed at a gorgeous hotel and travelled first class. We did the whole trip in style; it was a bit of a wobbly style, but it was still style. You can find more information on the Oktoberfest at http://www.muenchen.de/int/en/events/oktoberfest.html