Ahh, OKTOBERFEST! We finally made it and little did we know actually how big it was. It is not just a beer fest, it is an entire carnival with all kinds of rides for the kids. It is by far the largest carnival either Chris or I have ever seen. There were stands for pretzels, schnitzel, brats, beer and tents of people from all over the world, beer chugging, and more… We could have, but we didn’t spend all of our time in Munich at the fest, we did go see Sleeping Beauty’s castle, well the castle her castle was inspired by.
Neuschwanstein Castle was a day trip from Munich. We took a train from Munich, a ten-minute bus to the town, and then walked up to the castle for a little hike. We purchased timed tickets, so we took our time and ate some very good fries and sausages. We took our time hiking up to the castle checking out all the views, since we had to burn some time. Once we were at the top we found out there is a bridge on the backside of the castle you can walk across. The bridge is a pedestrian bridge built in 1845 called Marienbrucke. It takes a bit of nerve to walk across it. It is over a huge valley and it sways with lots of people on it. The wood flooring was very shaky, but you got a beautiful view of the castle and a waterfall. We all made it across and back, the girls needed a little encouragement!
The castle was of course beautiful. The furniture was even still in the castle, as expected you couldn’t touch any of it, some was even behind clear glass. I tell you this because I didn’t notice some glass in one area and I got a little too close, and bumped my head. It was really loud, loud enough for everyone to stop and look at me. It hurt, and I was embarrassed, and all I got was weird looks from my family. It still was a good tour of the castle. We learned a lot about the castle and it was a great date trip.
Back to the beer fest! We met a lot of nice people and drank our share of good beer. We saw people chugging liters of beer, drinking beer from their shoe, and just out right have a good time in enormous beer tents. We did not have any reservations, so we would just head into a tent and look around for seats in the non-reserved portions. We never had a problem getting a seat in any of the tents we wanted to attend. We made it to three of the big tents. Each time we left beer fest we allowed the girls to select several rides. Chris would not ride any, but I did with the girls. We did all do the fun-house together. We really had a great time at Oktoberfest. It was probably good the girls were with us or we might have had a couple too many!
