I realized two things when I reread my last little post, the first was that I had an overabundance of exclamation points (whoops) and I didn’t really spend too much time talking about our experience at Oktoberfest. We met our group at 10 am in the Hauptbahnhof and then took one little train ride to the Theresienwiese – the “meadow” where Oktoberfest is held. We learned a little bit about the history of the meadow (it was a wedding gift) and how Oktoberfest came to be. Basically everyone loved the royal wedding party so much they wanted to have it year after year, except they had to move it to September so the hop harvesters could make it and actually get to drink the fruits of their labor. Currently there are 14 tents, but only 2 of them are locally owned. In our group we made some friends, including Bill who managed to chug an entire liter of the special Oktoberfest brew! (This deserves an exclamation point, it was really impressive. His wife wasn’t happy). We ate half a chicken at the Hofbräu tent and had two liters of beer. Then we adventured the night away.
The next morning it took us a little while to get our bearing back together (hence the exclamation points and shorter post) but we managed to go off adventuring into Munich. We decided to go to the actual Augistiner brewery which was only about 10 minutes away. When we got there we had no idea how to actually get a seat at a table until some friendly Australians came around and we followed their lead. Basically… you just sit down somewhere and someone will come serve you. We made friends with the Australians, two Russian guys who were at the table, and a German woman who sat down after the Russians left. Overall our lunch was pretty good – I got a pork knuckle and a beer. We were there to see them tap a barrel of beer for a private party too, overall cool atmosphere and good beer for €3.75. Also, I just found the special characters button on this, so the correct spelling of the Icelandic attraction I liked so much is: Þingvellir. Score.
Next… 50% of us took a nap. While that was happening I figured out how to take the train from Munich to Salzburg. It’s pretty simple – you buy a Bayern Ticket and get on a regional train. Only €31! But you’re SOL if you accidentally get on a non-regional train. Which I still have no clue how to figure out which ones are which – supposedly there is an RE or RL designation but I wasn’t able to divine where that designation was to be found. So, ticket acquired, perfect! But wait, the ticket needs to be printed out onto A4 paper. Seems a little bit specific to me, I don’t even know where to get A4 paper. So I ventured down to the hotel business center and decided to gamble and print it out. Luckily Europe apparently loves A4 paper because that’s what it printed out on. Why it couldn’t just work on my phone, I have no idea.
Anyway, ticket to Salzburg in hand we decided to spend the rest of the day at Oktoberfest but not in any of the tents. One thing I didn’t realize about it is how massive it is. There are roller coasters set up within the 77 acres that make up the Theresienwiese. We watched people do this thing where they try to get up a slide by jumping on a moving wooden platform (not OSHA friendly) and then rode the Ferris wheel with our leftover tickets from the day before when it was raining. We bought some candied cashews that tasted pretty much like pure sugar and then strolled around people watching. It seriously is a massive affair even if the drinking alcohol aspect is ignored.
I got a good night’s sleep that night and morning wake up was around 7:30 because we needed to catch the train by 9:55. After navigating to the train station we managed to snag some seats with a little table and a pretty decent view of the Bavarian countryside as the 2 hour trip to Salzburg began. One thing… Bavaria is a lot like Lancaster except with way cooler towns and the Alps. By that I mean there are corn fields everywhere. And cows, except they were brown and white. Chocolate milk cows for sure.
After arriving in Austria the self-guided walking tour commenced. I had found a website that had listed all the major attractions with descriptions of them! The descriptions were really detailed and felt like there was an actual guide there. Anyway, the first stop was Mozart’s house before he got kicked out of Salzburg. Then we stopped at Schloss Mirabelle – a cool garden/palace combo that was originally built for a mistress of one of the Archbishops of Salzburg. There was also a somewhat creepy gnome garden where all of the gnomes are apparently original and patterned after a real court dwarf. A very helpful Austrian lady pointed us in the direction of the angel staircase but the marble ballroom was closed for a wedding.
Next stop was the small cemetery where Mozart’s wife and father are buried. This was probably the most serene part of the trip, especially considering it’s tucked away in the middle of the city. We then made our way up to a monastery that has a pretty good overlook of the city. Then down to a narrow alley where Silent Night was written (although the house number it was apparently written at wasn’t there). Then we traipsed across the Mozart footbridge and went to Cafe Tomaselli – the oldest coffee house in Austria! We had some tasty cake and okay coffee there before continuing the tour. What we also discovered at this time was that Salzburg was basically having its own little mini-Oktoberfest! Mozartplatz, Residenzplatz, Domplatz and Kapitelplatz were all filled with attractions so we didn’t get to admire the beauty of that area as much but it was still really cool.
No visit to a European city is complete without walking through their opulent and amazing cathedrals so we did that next. Boy was it pretty. From what I read it was the 8th time it was constructed, with the original being built in 774! After walking through the cathedral we stopped to get a beer at the tent set up in Domplatz. There were also three Austrian guys here playing what I assume is traditional Austrian music. The beer was a local Austrian brew and it tasted pretty good.
For the second to last stop in Salzburg we finally made out way to the Festung Hohensalzburg (The High Salzburg Fortress). We took the funicular up – for those of us Pennsylvania-ers: the incline plane. We started off with the audio tour which walked you through the development of the near impregnable fortress (except they surrendered to Napoleon) and then various rooms and views from the fortress itself. Definitely worth it. Our tickets included access to the State Rooms up at the top and they were seriously cool. One of the Archbishops (Leopold K) had decorated them to the extreme, including blue ceilings! He even managed to do this during the Reformation’s 30 Year War because he kept Salzburg neutral and just raked in the profits from the local salt mines and trade. The opulent ceramic stove was unfortunately under renovation so we couldn’t see it.
We managed to make our way out of the Festung Hohensalzburg eventually and took the incline plane back down to the Old City. Here we took a brief jaunt through St. Peter’s Catacombs – cool, although we were both hungry and my phone was dying so we didn’t read too much on them while we were there. Except that the catacombs themselves are from before the year 800 AD at least. On the way out I suggested we stop at Snack King, which was initially met with scorn, until it was discovered that Snack King had exactly the type of food we were looking for, hooray! The train ride back was uneventful except for the group of people who had brought some train six-packs with them. Only one day left!
