Navigate Oktoberfest
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It has become an annual tradition in Munich: Every year, after the 16 days of voracious beer drinking known as the Oktoberfest come to an end, every editor in town assigns a cub reporter to do an article on the festival's lost and found booty.
2008's haul included 280 mobile phones, 410 wallets, four wedding rings, a toupee and a Superman costume.
But it is the other statistics surrounding Munich's impossibly large folk festival that make jaws drop and mouths water around the world. Fully 100,000 festival goers can sit and gulp beer at the same time. Some 6 million visitors a year put back over 6.5 million liters of beer in just over two weeks. Hundreds of thousands of chickens, thousands of suckling pigs and over 100 oxen are served up to hungry partiers each year.
Still, despite the mind-blowing dimensions of the event, a visit to the world's most outsized party can end in sober frustration if not done right. Here's how to ensure your visit leaves you wanting to go back.
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When to go
Those who believe the stereotype about the German penchant for accuracy are in danger of missing the event entirely. Most of Oktoberfest actually takes place in September, with the final day being the first Sunday in October. (The 2009 festival goes from Sept. 19 to Oct. 4.)
The anomaly stems from the origins of the event: To celebrate the 1810 wedding of Crown Prince Ludwig von Bayern to Princess Therese, the city staged a day of frivolity and horse racing on Oct. 17.
The party proved so popular that it quickly became an annual event, and it was ultimately expanded and moved forward a few weeks to take advantage of better weather in late September. Barring war, an 1854 cholera epidemic and 1920s hyper-inflation, the event has taken place on Munich's Theresienwiese (Therese's Meadow) every year since.
Time it right
But just hitting the right month isn't enough -- Oktoberfest is not the place to go if you're looking for an all-night bender. Last call comes at 10:30pm, and an army of surly bouncers is remarkably adept at clearing out the tents by 11:30pm, (The two wine tents, Käfer's Wiesnschänke and the Weinzelt, are open until 1:00am).
Furthermore, only seated guests are served and, with a few hundred thousand parched patrons hoping to slake their thirst, there is no guarantee of finding a free table, even on the patios outside. Tents can often fill up by early afternoon, leading to closed doors and long, slow-moving lines.
The good news is that the tents open their doors at 10:00am on weekdays and 9:00am on weekends, so get there early (by noon on Saturdays and Sundays) if you're serious about your beer drinking.
It is possible to reserve tables for groups, though they need to be made months in advance. Go to the official Oktoberfest website and navigate to the tent of your choice. Each tent has its own website and bank of phone numbers.
How to get there
Theresienwiese, referred to simply as the Wiesn by Munich natives, is just a stone's throw from the city's main train station. This means Oktoberfest is just a short walk away for those staying in the myriad hotels crammed into the side streets behind the tracks.
Otherwise, public transportation is the way to go. Take the subway line U4 or U5 to Theresienwiese or the U3 or U6 to Goetheplatz.
What to bring
Every year, Munich pundits begin complaining about the price of beer well in advance of the first Oktoberfest keg being tapped. And the festival is nothing if not expensive.
A liter of beer goes for 8.60 euros. A meal in the tents can run to 15 euros. Once the beer munchies kick in, cash starts disappearing in a hurry.
Even if getting drunk isn't your first priority, the bottom line can come as a bit of a shock. The myriad rides available tend toward the pricey and grazing at the hundreds of food counters or trying your luck at the game booths will also eat into your wallet.
In short, bring plenty of cash. The ATMs on site tend to be mobbed, and credit cards won't get you very far. Beyond that, leave your valuables in the hotel.
The beer tents
There are many brave souls in Munich who take two weeks off work during Oktoberfest just so they can head to the Wiesn everyday for 16 solid days of partying. And once you've set foot inside one of the tents (actually vast, pre-fabricated wooden structures) and latched onto your first Mass (as a liter of beer is called in Bavaria), it isn't difficult to understand why. The music is bad, the air is stuffy and the cigarette smoke is thick, but there is nothing quite like getting blasted with 10,000 complete strangers.
Still, all beer tents were not created equal. Only the six breweries that brew their beer inside the city limits of Munich are allowed to supply suds at the Oktoberfest, and if you have a hankering for a specific label, you need to figure out which tent serves it. Indeed, it is for this reason that the Munich beer cognoscenti flock to the Augustiner tent, it being almost a consensus among locals that Augustiner brews the city's finest.
Beer, however, is not the only determinate of what the tents have to offer.
The Hofbräu tent tends to be the most raucous of the bunch due to its popularity among young foreigners, particularly the Americans and Australians. Indeed, many locals avoid it due to the degree of over-indulgence on display within.
Young Munich natives instead like to congregate in the Schottenhamel tent. The Hippodrome is where to head for (German) celebrity spotting and if you want a liter of Hefeweizen instead of the standard Helles (a pale lager). Go to the Ochsenbraterei if you want to sample some ox roasted on a gigantic spit instead of the standard tent meal of a half a chicken. The smaller Fischer Vroni tent has a good variety of fish dishes. The Hacker Festzelt has rock music instead of the more traditional brass bands on offer everywhere else.
No matter where you end up though, remember that, if you leave a tent, it might be difficult to get back in. And don't lose track of your toupee.
This article was originally submitted by Wired.com contributor Charles Hawley.
This page was last modified 23:33, 18 September 2009 by howto_admin.
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