Guten tag! Back in September Tassa and I took a week-long trip to Germany and had an absolute blast! Our friend Grant met us in Frankfurt, we did Oktoberfest in Munich, and then traveled around Bavaria in a camper van. We finished off the German excursion with another round of Oktoberfest before heading back to London. Germany was amazing and a bucket list destination for us that was a long time coming.
Growing up in Waterloo, Illinois doesn’t inherently scream German heritage, but the phone book reads as if it was Munich rather than Midwest USA. My last name, Neumeyer, is one of many surnames in Waterloo that derive from German ancestry. The town has a yearly German festival, a local brewery named The Stubborn German, and the Lutheran Church that I attended as a kid in Wartburg performed Christmas Eve services completely in German. I think that growing up in Waterloo gave me a sense of longing to see what the real Germany was all about.
Onward to the land of BEER and honey. One thing about living over here that has taken a little bit of getting used to is that everything is prorated. The tube system in London costs more in zones 1 and 2 than it does in 3 and 4 for example. Or if you travel to work at 8 am it costs more than at 6 am. Likewise, you can usually find cheap flights to just about anywhere, but the most affordable options are early morning or late at night on a Monday or Tuesday and at the furthest airport possible from the center of whatever city you are going to. If there is a big event, such as Oktoberfest then that affects the cost of things as well. Looking at direct flights from London to Munich during Oktoberfest season was disheartening because they were very expensive. Flying into a different city, like Frankfurt was much cheaper. After looking at lots of different options, I decided to get round trip plane tickets to Frankfurt and then take a train to and from Munich. This was significantly cheaper than flying in and out of Munich, but way more inconvenient.
We flew into Frankfurt on Friday morning September 20th and our train left in the afternoon, arriving in Munich around 4:30 pm. Our train to Munich was out of the main train station in central Frankfurt, so the first thing we had to do was get there from the airport. Tassa and I got train tickets to the main station from the airport and while we were waiting a lady approached us and asked us where we were from. It is funny how our American accents draw other Americans into conversations. We talked for a while and mentioned we were going to Oktoberfest and the lady, Terry, and her husband Scott, said they were going too. Terry told us that they belong to a group that comes back year after year, and that they had extra tickets if we wanted them. Basically, you must be at a table at Oktoberfest to get a beer. You can get into the tents without a ticket, but you must wait in line for a seat. With tickets you have a reserved spot. We were like, hell yeah, we’ll take them. We planned to meet up in Munich later or in the morning and get the tickets for the Hofbräuhaus tent. Sweet!!!
My buddy Grant was meeting us in Munich that evening at the hotel. Or so we thought. Tassa and I at once felt the German vibes in the Frankfurt train station and grabbed a bratwurst and a beer. While standing around waiting, out of nowhere Grant shows up! It was pretty epic. He flew to Stockholm a week earlier and was traveling around before meeting up with us. He was asking me what time our train got to Munich a few days before and figured about when our train would be leaving Frankfurt. He made his way down from Copenhagen to meet up early and surprise us – surprise! Now it was game on! We grabbed some more beers and a frankfurter (we had to get a frankfurter in Frankfurt), and it was so awesome to be hanging out again! We took along some beers for the train and had a nice conversation with a physicist from Austria. The train was packed so we hung out in the hallway by the bathrooms. During the ride, and our conversation was loud and obnoxious I’m sure, a German lady said to us, “Americans think they are the center of the universe.” Feeling liberal and culturally acclimated, I responded with “Not us. We don’t think that.” And she looked at us and said as she got off the train, “Yes you do.” I am finding that American culture is all consuming and as much as I don’t want to think I’m the center of the universe, the lady was probably right. I think we are conditioned to think that about ourselves and on a certain level it’s also sort of true.
Munich
Friday night was pretty chill. We went to the city center and looked for some lederhosen because now that we were guests in a tent we had to have the outfits. The store that Terry recommended was very expensive, plus I have a pair at home in America that I didn’t have room to bring with me to London. We ended up finding a place where we could rent lederhosen and dirndls, so we planned on doing that in the morning. We ended up eating at a cool restaurant in the heart of Munich and had amazing food and outstanding beers. I also went to the Bayern Munchen FC team store and bought a bad ass Thomas Muller jersey.
Oktoberfest
We got up early Saturday morning, grabbed an Uber, and went downtown to rent our Oktoberfest outfits. If you are thinking about going to Oktoberfest and do not want to buy a pair of lederhosen or dirndl, please note that there are tons of places to rent them. You could also buy a cheap costume set but renting seemed like the best option because you got authentic good quality outfits. I also think that buying them is not a bad idea either because you can wear them every year at home for a local Oktoberfest and at Halloween. Like I said, I have a nice pair at home and Tassa ended up buying a really nice dirndl in a small town in southern Germany later in the week. She laughed because the dirndl cost more than her wedding dress, but she’ll wear this more.
Once we were all decked out and had our drinking uniforms on, we made our way to Terry and Scott’s hotel to get our tickets. Another tip if you are thinking about going to Oktoberfest is to get tickets for at least one day. We were lucky to have met Terry and Scott and get tickets for the opening day of Oktoberfest. We went back a week later and did not have tickets and got lucky, or perhaps we were just there at the right time to get seats in the Augustiner tent, but we tried after that to get into several other tents and couldn’t. There are so many people at this huge event! I do not think it is necessary to have tickets for multiple sessions but having the full experience at least once is amazing.
Basically, Oktoberfest is a huge festival like a fair or carnival. There are amusement rides and attractions, amazing food everywhere, and of course beer tents. Now these are not small beer tents. They are incredible monuments to beer and almost indescribable. Each brewery in Munich has a tent. The big three are Hofbrau, Lowenbrau, and Paulaner. Another notable tent is Augustiner, but there are tons more. There are over 15 large tents and over 20 smaller tents. Tent isn’t really the right term; they are more like halls. To get a beer, you have to be at a seat in one of the halls, big or small. The tickets we got from Terry cost us around 170 euros total for three tickets to the Hofbrau fest tent and this included one beer each, a half a chicken each, and three – 15-euro vouchers that could be used for food, beer, or merchandise. Our session seating time was noon to 4:30 pm on the opening Saturday of the festival, and it was freaking awesome!
Finding the Oktoberfest grounds was easy because all you had to do was follow all the people dressed in lederhosen and dirndls. We got to the festival grounds around 11 am and the festivities started at noon. On opening day there is a parade as well. The first thing I had to do was check my backpack. This was easy and I was even given some advice from the guys working there. They told me to tell my wife to tie the draw string on her dress on the right side so that guys knew she was married or spoken for, otherwise they might hit on her. Then we started roaming the grounds and taking it all in. It is the most massive thing I have ever seen. We went to the Calgary Stampede a few years ago and that was big, but this was five times the size of that. We started to make our way towards the Hofbrau tent, but the parade ran in front of it, and we were on the other side. Thousands of people had also made their way down to the parade route and getting to our tent was impossible. At one point, people started going under the ropes that blocked off the parade route and ran across the path, but cops were physically trying to stop them. We saw one guy get pushed back into place by a female police officer. Then, suddenly, Tassa saw her chance and took off across the parade route. I hesitated but then went for it too. Grant was left on the other side for a little while and I guess he didn’t feel like he needed to chance it, which is odd for him since he is usually the one that breaks rules.
Then came an announcement that the firing of guns that signaled the beginning of Oktoberfest and the tapping of the first keg was about to happen and not to be alarmed. In front of the tent, they had a horse drawn barrel wagon, which reminded me of the Anheuser-Busch Clydesdales back home in St. Louis. Then we made our way into the festival tent. Holy cow what a site! The Hofbrau tent must be beer heaven. They had the German band, the place was packed, the hall was decorated with hops made out as a huge chandelier and pillars, and there was even a floating cloud with a cartoon guy playing a harp, like I said – beer heaven!
Our table was sort of in the back and inside an enclosed area, not in the general open area. Terry and Scott were there, and they introduced us to a guy named Big Mike, who was the person in charge of our area and who everyone got their tickets from. Then we got our first round of liter sized fest biers! Everyone was talking, the music was playing, and the crowd in the hall would sing along or explode in random bursts of joy. I thought the whole system of bringing out beer and food was excellent. We had to wait a little while for our first beers, but it was no big deal. A lady brought out a whole table worth of beers at a time. We bought huge pretzels to soak up the beer in our stomachs. Then we were served our half chickens and let me tell you something, the chicken was damn good! We ate and drank and started to get merry. Really merry!
The whole scene was about embracing and enjoying the good times. I think that is a good way to sum up what Oktoberfest is about. At least initially, but then those liter beers kick in and things get crazy real fast. Things did in fact get crazy, but if there was ever a pass for getting too drunk its Oktoberfest. I want to make sure to fully acknowledge the intensity of the joy we all felt in that beer hall, drinking pristine beer, eating great food, amid an overwhelmingly large crowd of humans feeling the growing warmth of intoxication along with us. It was one of the best experiences I have ever had! Hands down!
Obersasbach – Campingplatz Graesselmuehle & Strasbourg
The morning after the insanity that is Oktoberfest, we went to a small town an hour out of Munich to pick up our camper van rental. We have been excited about this for a long time now. We rented an Indie Camper for a week to drive around Bavaria and camp. We drove west from Munich and arrived that evening at the Campingplatz Graesselmuehle near Obersasbach. This area is right by the Black Forest and Rheine River. We chose this place because we found on the internet a schnapsbrunen nearby. A schnapsbrunen is a trail that has several schnapps stations along the way as you hike. You basically deposit a euro or two in a locked box and then help yourself to schnapps, which are there in bottles sitting in ice cold mountain water. This sounded cool, so in planning the trip we decided to check this area out.
The campground was nice and what I expected a European campground to be like. The only downer was that it was raining and muddy. Another hic-up we had to figure out was that Grant had a persistent medical issue that he felt needed attention. When we woke up Monday morning, Grant needed to go into town to a medical clinic. They directed him to a hospital in Offenburg. So, he took a train there and Tassa and I went back to campground and then out to explore.
We walked to a town called Sasbachwalden and tried to find the schnapsbrunen. We did find one schnapps station but that was all. We went for a hike, and I saw some places where I think schnapps would have been, but it wasn’t all set up at this time of year. The campground hosts told me that this was the last weekend before the campground closed for a few months, so I assume that the summer/fall good weather season was over. It rained the whole time we were there, and I can only imagine that it continues from there on out. The area was great though. We went for a great hike and ended up in a little town with a cool restaurant and had lunch. We literally just stumbled on it. The vibe in Germany is just next level.
Grant was gone all day and wouldn’t get back till like 11 at night. We would need to get him at the train station but since we had nothing to do, Tassa and I decided to check out Strasbourg, France. We were only a half hour drive from the French/German border. We drove to Kehl, Germany and parked our RV at the train carpark. Then we took a train across the Rheine to France. It is an incredible experience to be in Germany with people speaking German and then go ten minutes across a river and suddenly everything is weirdly French. The little tram trains in Strasbourg played weird techno music and the announcements were obviously in French, and the people suddenly went from German looking to unmistakably French looking. I can’t really explain that but believe me it’s true.
Tassa and I had a moment of stress trying to figure out how the hell to get around and adapt to the new language barrier we were facing after days of figuring out the German barriers, but we stayed with it and I’m glad we did because the Cathedral Notre Dame in Strasbourg is totally worth going there to see. Pictures won’t do it justice, but it is majestic and almost unbelievable that humans built something like that over 1,000 years ago. Work began in 1015 and was finished in 1439. It is truly freaking amazing.
After looking at the church and walking around, Tassa and I found a little café where I had one of the best beers I’ve ever had, Grimbergen Ambree, and Tassa had the tiniest coffee she ever had. We also had a crème Broulee and a lemon tart. Next level! One of the best European experiences yet.
Grant ended up having to go back to the doctor the next day, so we decided to leave him at the train station the following morning and head down to our next campground in Oberammergau, where he would meet up with us sometime later that day.
Oberammergau – Schloss Neuschwanstein
The drive from Obersasbach to Oberammergau was about three and a half hours. Tassa and I got to the campground in the afternoon. If you are thinking about traveling around southern Germany, I really recommend the campervan and staying in campgrounds. Campingpark Oberammergau was a short walk from the center of the little town and had great showers and facilities. Plus, it was way cheaper than a hotel, even with the camper rental. Oberammergau is a small town nestled in the Bavarian Alps and is famous for doing a Passion Play once every ten years. This must be quite the event, drawing in thousands of people to the little town. I am glad it wasn’t a Passion Play year because it felt like we had the town to ourselves. We really liked Oberammergau. It had great shops, the best being a cuckoo clock shop that we plan on buying one from someday. It also had excellent restaurants. We ate at the Hotel Alte Post several times. They had the most amazing potato soup! Seriously, it was one of the greatest things I have ever eaten in my life and as a bonus they add two frankfurter wieners on top. Wieners and potato soup go together like, well, wieners and potato soup. It was so good! I also had bayrischer wurstsalat. This is a sausage salad, which is made up of cut sausage that was a mix between braunschweiger and bologna sitting in a bowl of vinegar with raw onion on top. That’s it. Oh, and a side of bread. The waiter, who didn’t speak a lot of English told me not to get it, that it was mainly ordered by Germans. I told this guy my last name was Neumeyer, and I guess I was going to find out how German I really was and ordered it anyway. It was good. Weird, but good.
Grant met up with us that night at the camper and our trip was resumed. The next day we went for a hike up the mountain near town. Tassa and I saw that there was an alpine coaster nearby, so we trekked up hill to find it. We took a ski lift to the coaster. The trail went beyond the coaster so we decided to save that for later on our way down and checked out the restaurant. We had a beer and some food and then started our hike further up the mountain. As we hiked, we discovered the most amazing thing. There are restaurants and bars along the way! What? In Germany when you go for a hike you can stop and chill along the way and eat and drink. What a great idea! These places are only accessible by hiking too. We hiked about four miles up the mountain and then had some amazing German biers. The views, along with the beers made for an awesome experience! Then we hiked down and rode the alpine coaster. This was like a sled on metal rails. I was a bit nervous and rode the brakes more than I should have like a wuss and Tassa and Grant got held up behind me. I should have let them go first. Better safe than sorry.
The next day we went to Neuschwanstein Castle. The reason we stayed in Oberammergau in the first place was because it was close to this majestic Cinderella picturesque Disney castle set in the mountains. Pictures do not really do it justice and in my opinion, it is a must do thing in Germany. The castle sits nestled in the foothills of the surrounding Alps near the town of Schwangau. It’s easy to find and get to. There was a good amount of parking and places to eat and of course, to grab a beer. King Ludwig II started building the castle in 1869, in which he intended to live but he died in 1886. The castle was a testament and shrine to the glory of medieval German kings. I absolutely loved visiting this place. We toured the castle and the grounds. We did not do the other castle across the valley, Hohenschwangau Castle. One giant German castle was enough for us. I highly recommend visiting this place if you are in southern Germany.
I cannot say enough about this area. I loved it. I felt like I was home in some weird way. We left the following day after Neuschwanstein Castle and made our way back to Munich.
Back to Oktoberfest
Tassa booked a spot in a parking lot for the night, so we could go for another round of Oktoberfest. We found the parking lot, but it was void of bathrooms or anything really. It was just a tucked away lot, which worked out fine. One other camper came and stayed there besides us. This time around we had learned a few things and didn’t let the excitement of being at the greatest beer festival on earth make us drink like idiots. We also didn’t have any reservations or tickets, which was also fine. We made it the grounds and went to the Augustiner tent. We barely had to wait in line. We got in and found seats easily and got a round of giant beers. It was awesome to see a different tent and be able to compare the Hofbrau and Augustiner experiences. Hofbrau was next level, but Augustiner had an older established vibe. Both were very cool. After a couple beers and some pretzels, we left and walked around the Oktoberfest grounds.
The only downer was that it was raining off and on the whole time, but we rolled with it. There were a few attractions that we looked around for and finally found. I cannot stress enough how freaking big this event is. The first was a large conveyer belt that went up and you basically jumped on it and tried to keep your balance and stay on your feet and ride it to the top. We stood and watched for a while before we got our nerve up to do it ourselves. Grant did it on his first try. Of course. Tassa wiped out. I went down immediately, feet strait up in the air the whole way up. Tassa then thought she had figured out the secret to staying on your feet, so she tried again. She jumped on the moving floor and looked like a cartoon with her legs going a mile a minute while a worker held her up. She sort of went limp after he had her balanced. It was funny as hell.
Then we saw the ultimate drunken game ever invented. We made our way into another tent, much smaller amid the row of carnival attractions. Inside there were bleachers around the room with lots of people standing and watching this huge merry-go-round thing in the center of the tent. There was an announcer, and he called out something in German and then about 30 people all piled up on this spinning floor. The object was to be the last person on the spinning thing. It was hilarious. People were flying off in all directions and then it would get down to two or three people and the workers would start throwing things at them. Eventually they would throw a rope and try to dislodge them and make them fall off the thing. I have no idea how these people spun around like that for so long and didn’t throw up! It was insane. One guy was on there for 15 minutes and they had a hard time getting him to fall off.
After we left this amazing display of drunken will power, it started raining pretty good. We eventually left and made our way back to the camper. The next morning, we had to leave Grant and make our way back to the camper van rental place. I am so glad that Grant came and experienced this trip with us. After we left him at the train station, we didn’t know that another adventure awaited us.
We decided to take the van back a day early on Saturday instead of Sunday and get to Frankfurt. Good thing we did because if we had waited till Sunday, we would never have been able to make our train and get to the airport in Frankfurt in time. I didn’t realize it was impossible to make our flight the way I had it planned. We dropped the van off and then walked to a bus stop that was a mile or so away. After waiting for a long time at the bus stop, we realized that the busses didn’t run there on Saturday or Sunday. Not know this on Saturday was aggravating but if it were Sunday, it would have been a disaster. Then we tried to get an Uber, but after a while it was obvious they were not coming out this far to get us. We were in a remote area. We started walking, with our two suitcases to the nearest train station, which was a town away and about a five-mile walk. We were literally walking through fields and down back roads in the countryside. It was insane. We finally got to the station and took a train to Munich. Once there, I tried to change my ticket from Munich to Frankfurt on Sunday to Saturday. Not an option. So, I paid a few hundred euros to get new tickets.
We got to Frankfurt Saturday night. We stayed at a Premier Inn near the station and got an Uber the next day to take us to the Frankfurt Hahn airport. Another travel tip we have learned is that cheap flights usually fly into or out of small airports, which are not near the city you want to go in or out of. Hahn Airport is an hour and half drive from Frankfurt. After a hefty Uber bill but also a very nice conversation with our driver, we made it to the airport and made it back to London later that afternoon. If we had tried to take the van back, catch the train, and get to Hahn airport from Frankfurt all in one day as originally planned, we never would have made it. So, it is usually better to spend a bit more money up front and fly into and out of bigger city airports, even if the prorated cost is more for events like Oktoberfest. If I had just booked roundtrip direct flights to Munich from London it would have cost me more up front but after the extra train tickets, extra hotel stays, Ubers, and hassle we would have at the very least broken even. Live and learn. The travel hassles didn’t overshadow the awesome time we had in any way. Take my advice, go to Germany! Prost!
Postscript
It has been a pleasure to revisit this trip. It was amazing! Germany is amazing! Oktoberfest is an absolute must! We are already planning another trip next September to go back and do it again. Nolan and his friend are coming this time and Grant is planning on coming back too. It’s an event that needs planning, so starting to get things in order sooner than later is important. Plus, flights and accommodations are much cheaper when booked far in advance. We have our hotel in Munich already booked and our flights home. Home to America. Oktoberfest 2025 will be our last trip on this crazy adventure, and we plan to fly home from Munich afterwards.
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