Thu, 02 Oct 2003

author Liz	location Genève, Suisse
posted 19:47 CEST 09/10/2003	section Europe2002/Europe/Deutschland/Deutschland 3 ( all photos )

Leaving Munich ( 3 photos )
On Thursday, the day after our big Oktoberfest day, I didn't feel too bad - just tired. I would love to go to Oktoberfest all over again, just perhaps another year!
We had our breakfast at the hostel, and packed up our bags. We chatted to some of our Aussie dorm mates for a while, and after leaving our bags in the hostel storage room, we went out for one last wander around Munich.
We made a quick stop at the internet café to check our emails and to sort out a few details to do with getting Rosie towed. From there, we walked towards Marienplatz although not quite as far as the square itself, bought some tourist junk, and then headed back in the other direction to Oktoberfest.
It was about 11am, and the place was starting to get busy and fill up. We walked through the showground again, bought a nice souvenir for ourselves, and even came across two Aussies we had met in the beer hall the day before and had a quick chat.
Tim and I couldn't quite face any more beer, but we did go back into our Hofbräu tent and sat with two half-litre Cokes, and shared half a bbq chicken, which was very tasty. It was tempting to get one last beer, but we had had plenty the day before, so we reluctantly said goodbye to our beer tent, the huge lion that bellowed "Löwenbräu", the wooden pecking chickens at the pecking chicken stall, the big wooden cow being turned on a spitroast over the top of one of the beer halls, the wonderful smells and the colourful atmosphere of Oktoberfest.
On the way back to the hostel to pick up our bags, we stopped at a hairdressers where I had a quick haircut. Then we went and got our bags, and walked up to the train station.
We were at the station for quite a while, waiting for a privately-run (but incredibly helpful) tourist office and ticket-seller to open. I stayed with the bags (we have bought a cheap carry bag to cart around our extra stuff), and Tim went off to organise the tickets. When he came back, we had train tickets that would take us to Liechtenstein that afternoon, so we went to our platform and boarded the first of three trains.
A lot of the journey was quite scenic. Just out of Munich, we went through beautiful rolling farmland and small German villages. We changed to our second train in Kempton, and then our third in Lindau, near the Germany/Austrian border.
This took us across the border south into Österreich once again.

author Liz	location Genève, Suisse
posted 19:38 CEST 09/10/2003	section Europe2002/Europe/Deutschland/Deutschland 3 ( all photos )

Oktoberfest! ( 16 photos )
On Wednesday morning, we got up early. We were keen to get to the beer halls early, as people had told us that there had been no seats left at 9am. But that had been on a weekend.
We at breakfast at the hostel, and then walked up to Oktoberfest. It was about 8:30am and the place was much emptier than it had been the night before. It turned out that the beerhalls only opened at 10am on a weekday, but we didn't mind being there early. It gave us a good chance to look around at the whole showground and watch the Oktoberfest come to life.
We had planned to go to one of the Löwenbräu beer halls, but as we were about to go inside, a guy popped out of the kitchen and in an Aussie voice said "Are you guys looking for the Australian tent?" We didn't know how he knew we were Aussies, but we said yes and he told us to go to the HB tent. So off we went. We found the right tent - Hofbräu and went inside to a very big, fairly empty, and very nice looking tent.
We got ourselves a seat and started the say with half a litre of Coke each! Many people were already on their first beer, but we decided to wait just a bit.
At about 11:30am, we ordered our first litre of beer each - huge big glasses so heavy it was hard to lift them up to drink, but the beer was very very nice.
And so, we spent a whole day at Oktoberfest drinking many beers (Liz = 4, Tim = 5, we think!), meeting many nice people (Aussies and Germans), eating big bread pretzels, listening to the fantastic band, singing German beer songs, laughing, talking, and drinking. I had so much fun and would love to go back there again another year. We even forgot to eat for most of the day because we were having such a fantastic time. We made heaps of new friends and chatted to so many people and of course drank many beers!
At about 9pm, we decided we had drunk plenty, said goodbye to everyone, and slowly made our way back to the hostel.

author Liz	location Interlaken, Schweiz
posted 20:13 CEST 06/10/2003	section Europe2002/Europe/Deutschland/Deutschland 3 ( all photos )

Looking around München ( 20 photos )
(Continued from Österreich 2).
At about midday, we arrived in München (Munich). We had two nights' stay booked at a hostel, which was conveniently close to the station, so we went there first and checked in, but had to leave our bags in a storage room.
From the hostel, we stopped quickly at an internet café and then wandered up to the centre of town.
We didn't actually do a lot of sight-seeing as such, but just spent hours and hours walking around the city. We came to a big fountain and then wandered along a busy pedestrian shopping street until we came to Marienplatz, a square dominated by a huge neo-gothic building, the Neues Rathaus. We stood and just enjoyed the busy square for a while, before heading onwards.
From Marienplatz, we walked through lots of streets, some busy, some quiet. We saw market stalls, cafés and restaurants, with lots of people drinking beer. We walked over a bridge crossing the Isar River and went into a large and very beautiful park - Maximilian Anlagn. There were lots of green trees, with some of the leaves changing colour, and the sound of running water from the river. It was really relaxing and peaceful just strolling along.
We crossed back over the river and went into Englischer Garten, a huge park filled with woods, streams and wide open grassy areas. We kept walking past a large beer hall, and we sat on a patch of grass to eat some fruit and watch all the people and dogs walk by.
We came out of the park and made our way back through the city to the Internet café, where we got all our good news about having the van towed. From there, we went back to our hostel, found our beds (in a thirty bed dorm! but nice and clean, split up into groups of ten), and met the other newly-arrived Aussies around us.
Of course, everyone was in Munich for Oktoberfest, so after a while Tim and I went to see what it was all about. It was ten minutes walk from the hostel, which was very convenient and made it easy to get to.
The whole place was really cool - a bit like the Easter show, with lots of rides and stalls selling yummy food and soft toys. And there is beer! There about twelve beer 'tents', which are actually huge buildings that fit about ten thousand people in each one. Each tent comes from a particular beer company, so if you want a certain beer, you go to that tent. We walked into the showground, bought some delicious showgrounds covered in mustard, and just wandered around trying to soak everything in. The delicious smells of roasting nuts, sausage, chicken, popcorn were all around us. There were flashing lights and loud music, and crowds of people, then we wandered into one of the beer halls. I don't think I have ever seen so many noisy happy people all at once! Lots more yummy smells, so many people, and so much beer! We went into four or five different tents, just standing still or having a bit of a walk around. Each tent had a great band playing, and everyone was singing, drinking, clapping, cheering, eating, and standing on the tables. Everyone was having such a good time - I couldn't wait for the next day when were going to spend a whole day at Oktoberfest!
After a good look around, we decided to go back towards the hostel and get a bit more food there where it would be cheaper. Along the way, we stopped at a bar and had a small beer each (well, we had just seen so much of the stuff!!).
We grabbed a bit of food, and then went back to the hostel where I slept fairly well, but Tim was kept awake by lots of noisy, drunk people coming in.

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