Road Trip Un: Munich & Oktoberfest

We've found something we've never done in 11.5 years as a couple...a true, long road trip!  So last week we took our first road trip through Germany.


We had a great week, and even though we are convinced Bavaria is actually just German for heavy fog all the time, we still saw some awesome sights and beautiful fall colors.  Nick's also ready to become German: we discovered we liked sauerkraut (is it really possible we never tasted this in Wisconsin?) and he's pretty much fluent in German after this week.  While he carried on conversations with our B&B hosts, I just stared like a little kid with a smile on my face while pretending I knew what was going on.  Where did my German go you ask?  I have no idea....I'm just hoping my French sticks around a little longer than my German did!

After a long drive and lots of traffic, we arrived in the Munich area early afternoon Saturday.  We decided to stop at Dachau concentration camp on our way into town to avoid another trip later in the afternoon.  It was a pretty interesting museum and sad to see the barracks and crematorium and think of all the tragedy that happened here.  This was more of a labor camp than a death camp, but it was still unbelievable.
We made our way to our first airbnb experience ever...a rented room and bathroom in the basement of someone's house.  It wasn't in the old city center but was close to the u-bahn, and when hotel rooms are going for 300-400 euros a night, I will gladly take airbnb rates!  We decided to don our Oktoberfest gear (thanks Katie & Skee!) and head over to the grounds to see if we could get in a tent for the night.  We knew it was a long-shot, but it was even busier than we thought.  We ended up taking some photos and then heading into the old city for dinner and some sightseeing.
The next morning, we made it our goal to arrive at Oktoberfest by 9:30am to be able to get a place in a tent without reservations (reservations are for large groups only and apparently very difficult to come by).  Luckily, when we arrived we had our pick of tents.  We scoped out the choices and finally decided on Hacker tent.  The day started out pretty calm...we met some Germans from Munich who were very friendly.  A band was playing, and life was good!

Our original plan was to leave in mid-afternoon, take a nap, and then sight-see in Munich.  Well....that did not happen...people started singing crowd songs, including "Sweet Caroline", and standing on tables.  How could we leave now?!?  We attempted to stay until the very end at 11pm, but only made it until about 10.  Ohhh, what a day!  This was definitely the highlight of our trip and something we will never forget!

New German friends!

Monday morning was a little slow going for us, as you might imagine.  But we had to leave our apartment by 10am, so after throwing everything in the car we struggled our way via public transit to the old city.  It was extremely cold and foggy, but we managed to see the Virtuallen Market, the glockenspiel show at the Rathaus, and climb the top of St. Peter's Church.

We also stuffed our selves with pasta and enjoyed just sitting for a few hours. :)  Be sure to check out the rest of our Munich and Oktoberfest pictures here.

And then we made the beautiful drive to southern Germany, toward Mad Kind Ludwig's castles.  The colors were stunning, even if there was fog everywhere!  Read more about this part of the trip here.