Munich
The Glockenspiel!
The city that is host to one of the most world renown beer festivals. Munich, Germany. Oktoberfest. What other beer festival has actually gotten into the zeitgeist of our culture? I can’t think of one. It’s outstanding! And this city… is equally outstanding.
This piece actually lines up really well with what is happening in my life right now. I sat down to write the continuation of my 2016 European trip and Munich just happens to be the next stop after Florence. Get this though… I will be going to Munich for five or so hours in exactly two weeks! I am over the moon about it. I love when a plan comes together. So… without any further ado… here we go!
This city has breweries everywhere. Established breweries that have been around for a good long while. Here’s just a couple. Weihenstephan was founded in 1040. Yeah. Close to 1000 years ago. The original Hofbräuhaus? 1589. They didn’t even have electricity back then! So… needless to say… Munich is outstanding for a beer lover. History AND good beer? Oh yeah.
Lowenbrau!
When I went we arrived near the end of Oktoberfest but that does not matter because the festival just… keeps… going… hard… all the time. Doesn’t matter if it's the last day or if it's the first day. It goes. I was glad we really didn’t miss out on much… besides the inaugural keg tapping at the beginning that starts the whole thing but I’m okay with missing that. We met up with our fourth travel co-patriot, Paul, in Munich and with that meeting… I made a friend... because Paul was an amazing dude. Sadly a few years ago Paul passed away and I want to say that I still miss him. He was such a jovial dude with a ton of love to give. We instantly hit it off and that was with me having never met the guy before! Trips and drinking together are two things that really forge bonds and we did both.
We arrived from Florence and dropped off our bags at the Airbnb and hit the town. The first place? Hofbräuhaus! It is the oldest beer hall in Munich after all! It was the correct choice because the Bavarian music was being played live when we walked in and we soon had steins in our hands. We got some pretzels from the servers walking around and… due to how crazy it was… there was no mustard to be found. I was a tiny bit crestfallen… but after drinking more of my stein? Completely fine.
The next day we ventured out into the city to actually tour it before we dove into the main event, Oktoberfest. We headed up to the main park that is just north of central Munich and let me tell you… it is extremely beautiful and we had outstanding weather on that day to top things off. Hofbräu even had a full team of Clydesdales outfitted with the brewery’s livery. It was quite the site to see.
They were extremely impressive.
We then headed towards the Königsplatz. A beautiful square that is host to two of the city’s most impressive museums. On the way we discovered that surfing is alive and well in this city. You might be confused. I was as well. Just take a look at this picture.
Wait… I thought I had left California… where am I?
Craziness. I know. Looked like a blast though! We did go explore the museums and the amount of Greek and Roman statues… was extremely impressive. Well worth taking the time to see some history before the beer started to flow.
The thing about Oktoberfest as well is… the entire city is just party central. There were impromptu concerts going on randomly and we did walk by one where some Gorillas had invaded the stage and were attacking the singers… it was quite alarming.
With that - I will leave you hanging for more!
