Salzburg to Munich & Oktoberfest

Once again, we were up by 6:00 AM to pack up and be on the road again, well really the train, to head to Munich.  At least we are getting used to the consistent early wake up time, not really, it is still early.  Stephanie had asked about checking out early to make sure someone would be there when it was time to leave the hotel around 7:10 AM.  The proprietor of the hotel  actually told us she would be there at 5:00 AM anyway, and even have the breakfast set up early for us, even though it is normally served starting at 7:30 AM, well after the time we needed to leave.

When we went downstairs, everything was out for breakfast, and it was really good compared to the Pension in Vienna.  The staff were very friendly at the hotel, we would certainly recommend it to anyone going to Salzburg.  The rooms were not fancy, but they were quaint and comfortable, and with a comfortable price.

The only issue we had was that the room was heated, and we could not really control the temperature.  We had to open the window to keep it from being too hot, and the street below was a little noisy early in the morning.  It was cloudy again, and had rained some during the night.  Not sure what is going on with the weather in this part of Europe, it has been cloudy and rainy more than it has been sunny.  Without internet service at the hotel, we can’t check the weather to see what the forecast is for Munich.

We headed to the bus stop, and took the bus back to the train station.  We headed to the platform for our train, and made it there with about 20 minutes to spare before the train arrived.  We looked at the train diagrams to find out where our particular car number would be in the order of cars starting at the first one behind the engine.   Every train has a diagram on a board out on the platform to help you to orient yourself on the platform to be near your car number so you can get on the correct car where your reserved seat is located.  This train had originated elsewhere, so it was only passing through Salzburg, stopping  in the station for only 3-4 minutes before it leaves, so you have to be quick.  This is only the case for the higher speed trains where you have reserved seats.  Otherwise,as its the case on the regional trains,  all of this process of locating your correct train car is moot, you just get on anywhere and find a seat.

The train was fairly empty at this early hour, but we may pick up more passengers at stations on the way.  We found our seats, and discovered that the seats have an electronic display above them, on the side near the window showing the originating station and the ending station for the occupants on the small information screen.  It also gave us some assurance that we were in the correct seats since it listed Salzburg and Munich as the starting and stopping stations for these seats, matching our itinerary.  The ticket attendant came by a little after we departed, and checked our tickets, all without incident.  We had purchased these tickets online prior to leaving home to take advantage of some special pricing, so we were a little apprehensive about the process of getting the ticket printout verified on the train.  The train ride is about an hour and 45 minutes, scheduled to arrive at 9:33 AM in Munich.

We arrived in Munich on schedule, and departed the train and headed for the Underground station.  We needed to take either the U1 or U2 trains to the Sendlinger Tor stop.  After purchasing our Underground tickets, we headed to the platform and rode to our stop.  After taking the escalators us to the ground level, we headed out to find the hotel.  We had pretty good directions, and found the general area, but had a little difficulty actually finding the entrance to the hotel.  What threw us off was the restaurant by the same name that was on the corner, which was not directly adjacent to the hotel.  The hotel was actually about another block down the street.

We passed by it the first time, the sign out front was really high up on the building, there was not much signage at all at the entrance.  As we had anticipated, the room was not yet ready, it was only about 10:00 AM in the morning, and check-in was not until 2:00 PM.  We put our locked suitcases in a storage area of sorts, and headed out to see some of the city.

We decided to go to an area in the old city called Marienplatz, which was sort of a market area.  The New Town Hall building is located there there with its famous Glockenspiel, which is a musical clock that depicts a scene to music, similar to the animated portions of a cuckoo clock’s moving and dancing parts, except this clock is about life sized.  After the noon show on the Glockenspiel, which lasted about 15 minutes,  we walked around and went into some of the other outdoor shops and then grabbed some bratwurst for lunch, which were really good.   Then we decided to head in the direction of the Hofbrauhaus, which is a well established biergarten in Munich.  Since it was a little cooler, and was raining slightly at times, there was nothing going on outside in the actual garden area, but things were hopping inside (beer pun).   We wondered around and found a spot for the two if us at a table where four men were seated, we asked if it was OK to sit with them, and they agreed.

We asked to share their menus, and Stephanie also asked for some help in determining which kinds of beer to get.  They were really nice and helpful, especially the one seated next to Stephanie, whose name we later learned was Kristian, and they were all for Denmark.

We sat with them for about 3 hours, sipping on our one liter beers, and listening to the band playing traditional German music.  We learned a lot about life in Denmark from these “new friends”, and they also told us about going to the Oktoberfest tents, and helped with suggestions on getting in.  At about 3:00 PM we all left, they headed to their hostel that was located very near to the festival, and we headed back to our hotel to drop off  our backpacks and get ready to walk over to the Oktoberfest park.

It was about a 15 minute walk to the festival grounds from our hotel, pretty straightforward on a major street.  However, you had to make a turn near the park to actually get access into the festival grounds.

The first area we saw was the fair area where all of the rides were located.   This fair was like  a very, very large county fair, but the rides were much fancier, and there were a lot of them.  We made our way over to the area where all of the large “tents” are for the major beer breweries, which is where all of the partying goes on.  They were not really tents anymore, most seemed to have some sort of permanent structure to them.

We walked into one, and it did not seem to be very festive, so we left and walked down the area to one that looked large and fun from the outside.  It was really packed inside, but was it not hard to gain entry, we were allowed in right away.  We wandered around inside looking for some space for the two of us to sit at one of the tables.  We happened upon one with just enough space for two, and Stephanie asked it if would be alright for us to sit with the gang already at the table,  so we could be served.  You can’t get a beer inside the tent if you are not seated at a table.  We think this helps with knowing who is ordering the large one liter beers, and more importantly, who is paying for them when they are delivered by the waitress.

They all agreed to share their space with us at the table, and we sat down and started to hear about our second set of  “new” friends we had met today.  There was a young army doctor from Hawaii that was in Germany on an eight week assignment, there was a couple from Canada, there was a German couple that had just gotten married on Saturday, and there was a brother and sister from the USA.  The brother had been living in Munich for 15 years, and his sister was visiting from Florida.

It was ironic that the brother’s name was Christian, the same name as the person we had met earlier in the Haufbrahaus that was here from Denmark, except for the spelling.  This Christian was in traditional German dress, the Lederhosen, as were the couple from Germany that had just recently gotten married.

Christian helped us to get beers ordered, and explained about the rounding off for tipping, and about the beer cheer songs.  He also explained about the amount of beer in the glasses and how to make sure they pour you the appropriate amount, and what do do if not.  He also explained what the limitations were for standing on the tables, that you can stand on the bench seats, and one foot can be on the table top for balance, but that it is forbidden to actually stand on the top of any table.

There was a band there playing German songs, lots of beer drinking cheer songs where everyone sings, and you clank classes in a toast at the end.  We had a lot of fun.  It started to get a little wilder later into the evening, as the songs got more intense, and the place got really full of people, and of course, the beer was flowing.  We decided we had better head back to the hotel, and it was getting close to the time for the tents to close anyway, which was at 11:00 PM.

We headed out into the darkness, and found that it was raining slightly.  We thought we were heading to the same entry point at first, but then determined we were not and went in another direction until we saw the original entrance.  However, since the fair was closed, and it was dark, everything looked different.

We also realized that when I changed rain jackets at the hotel earlier, I had left our Munich city map in the other jacket.  It had seemed an easy route to get to the fairgrounds earlier, so we headed out in the direction we thought was correct.  Somewhere along the way we did something incorrect, and got a little lost.  We had to stop at a hotel and ask for a map, then we had to try and determine where we were, and how to get to  our hotel.  It was not easy, and we walked a lot farther than we should have, but eventually we made it back to our hotel.  We were never that far away, but the streets do not go in straight lines, and the map names are very hard to read, especially in the dark and without my glasses.  We (Stephanie) asked a couple of times for help from some very friendly people we met while wandering the streets of Munich.  We never felt unsafe, there were a lot of people out on the streets, and we were never in what looked like any bad sections of town.  It was not all that late either.

Needless to say, we were very tired when we finally found our hotel, and getting to sleep was not an issue.  We had a great time on our one and only Oktoberfest night, we were too worn out to think about doing it again tomorrow.