9-19-11 The hofbrau in munich

Johanna drinking beer at the hofbrauhaus

at the hofbrau

The rathaus at night

 a local store after dark

After a beautiful sunny day on Sat.  Sun. was rainy and windy and we just stayed in and read.  Mon. wasn't much better in the AM but in the late afternoon Johanna and I went to the zentrum and had a beer at the viktualienmarkt.   Things were pretty slow there so we decided to go to the hofbrauahus instead of back to the wiesn and the oktoberfest. 
It is a brewery founded in 1589 by the Duke of Bavaria, and it's one of the oldest beer halls in Munich.  It is owned by the state of Bavaria.  The brewery owns the Hofbrauhaus, Hofbraukeller, and the 2nd largest tent at the Oktoberfest.  It is called the no. 1 tourist attraction in Munich. 
The place was packed when we got there and we ended up sitting at a table with 2 Tasmanians and 2 Germans.  Speaking to the Tases was hard because of the noise from the partiers and the band and their accent.   We each had a piece of pork where the skin was charred and it was nice and crispy and the fat was delicious  but the kloss knoedl was like a cannon ball.   The dark beer was great.  Readers can also go to utube and see other vids of revelry at the Hofbrauhaus.
Afterwards we walked thru the fussgang area while Johanna did a lot of window shopping.  It was cold and a reminder that we had better get on to biking or we will be riding in the snow.  It did snow in the Alps where we were on Fri.

The Oktoberfest 9-17-11

At the parade

Entering the wiesen

At the wiesen by the brewery horses

Magdalena and Johanna with the horses

Johanna with brewery wagon

brewery horseman

brewery horses

brewery horse  and finery

Statute Bavaria

dirndl wearer

first beer at the Wiesen

Pretzel vender

pretzel eater

another pretzel eater

maidens wearing their dirndls

Susanne and Christoph

Magdalena and Mac

The gang

Diana and Susanne showing their dirndls

At the Augustiner biergarten off the Oktoberfest venue

Puke meadows at the wiesen.  Where people that ate too drunk can come and sleep it off.

More beer

Tourists with maidkins

Dirndl maidkins

More beer and a 2 half chickens

Enjoying a beer

Tourists enjoying biergarten

Magdalena and Heini

End of the evening catching the ubahn

In the early AM it was raining but by the time for the parade it was sunny  and muggy.  The parade starts off the Oktoberfest with the brewerys showing off their traditional beer wagons pulled by richly decorated draft horses.  The brewerys involved are the ones that have beer tents at the oktoberfest venue or wiesen. In between each brewery there are marching bands dressed in traditional outfits.  I videoed the parade but can't upload that much so if you want to see a good bit of the parade go to utube and search 2011 Oktoberfest parade.  Somebody had already uploaded it by Sunday morning. 
The oktoberfest is the worlds largest beer fest.  The 16 day event has 6,000,000 visitors and they consume 1.5 million gallons of beer.  It was started in 1810 to celebrate the  Oct 12th marriage of Ludwig I to Saxon-hildburghausen princess Therse.  It was moved to Sept. later to have better weather.  This year they broke the 9 euro cost for a litre of beer.  It's expensive but everybody seems to have a good time.
After the parade we walked toward the wiesen and heard the cannons go off opening the fest.  The Mayor of Munich taps the first keg and they shoot a cannon and people start running to the beer tents to get a seat.  I wouldn't doubt that there was 500,000 people visit the place today. 
We walked thru the wiesen to a "traditional beer tent" which is supposedly more sedate then the 11 other tents.  More family oriented but it looked like they took their drinking just as seriously as everywhere else.  There were 4 of us to start, but later 3 more showed up.  We stayed there till about 4 and then went to an off site beergarden called Augustiner, met Heini and proceded to drink more beer and eat more chickens.  At dark we headed to Christoph and Susanne house for a little wine to top off the evening.  After that we got on the ubahn and headed home about midnite.






t

Dinner after the Hike 9-16-11

Felix the chef

Christoph and Susanne

Susanne and Felix

On the trip home from the hike in the Alps we stopped at a Metzgerei and got some meat to BBQ at Felix and Nadine's apt.  Heini, Magdalena, Christoph, and Susanne came over.   There was lots of beer, wine and food and a good time was had by all. 

Hiking in the karwendel 9-16-11

After  getting off the cable car

Herzogstand  Peak above the Herzogstand haus former hunting of King Ludwig II of Barvaria

Bust of Ludwig II

Herzogstand haus biergarten

Kochelsee

Hikers

The ridge trail that we hiked

view from trail

Enzian

Hiker

Ridge trail to Heimgarten

Heimgarten summit 1800 metres

Break at Heimgarten hut

Tourist at the foot of the cable car.

The weather promised to be warm and sunny so we decided to drive to Walchensee to hike up to the Herzogstand  which used to be a hunting lodge for King Ludwig II.  Felix drove us thru the heavy traffic of Munich in the direction of Garmisch.  After arriving at Walchensee we took the cable car up to the trailhead.  It was a scary steep ride unlike any we have been on in Calif.  The cable car was packed with people of all ages, shapes and sizes.  Several dogs also enjoyed the ride.  We dropped Mac off at the hut to enjoy the sunshine and beer.
Felix, Magdelena and I then continued on.  The photos show the trail to the  Heimgarten summit.  It was a fairly strenuous hike with sections where one had to hang on to cables.  It was important to have hiking poles, good hiking shoes, to be surefooted and not suffer from fear of heights  In 21/2 hrs we reached to summit, climbed down to the Heimgarten hut and had the best Kaiserschmarrn to be had in all the Alps according to Felix.  Felix was also our guide since he knows the mountains like his back pocket.  After checking on Mac by cell, we started on our way to the valley where Mac, who had taken the gondola down, was waiting for us.  We had beautiful weather and we could see as far as the Zugspitze.  Again the sky was as blue and white as the Bavarian Flag.