Oktoberfest

sprinkles

Has anyone gone to this before?

If so where did you stay & what did you think of the festival?

Thinking about going this year so just wanna get some feedback on it first...


SP

gramlab

Dont expect too much. The festival is only on in one place (the rest of munich is just full of souveniers about the festival). Cant remember the exact location but its basically like a theme park with losts of beer tents.

p.pete

Think it's located here: http://www.multimap.com/map/browse.cgi?client=public&X=1285750&Y=6097000&width=700&height=400&gride=1289103.08047917&gridn=6098193.11432394&srec=0&coordsys=mercator&db=DE&addr1=&addr2=&addr3=&pc=&advanced=&local=&localinfosel=&kw=&inmap=&table=&ovtype=&keepicon=true&zm=0&scale=5000&out.x=6&out.y=8

Never been to the festival but I'm sure I will someday Make sure you sort accomodation before anything else - that'll be the hassle. There's a load of hostels near the main train station but anywhere would be fine to stay as transport is very good round Munich.

sprinkles

I have no illusions that this will be anything more than a week of beer tents

Cheers for the advice. has anyone else been to it? Is it expensive? What's the crowd like - students/tourists etc?

silvo

Oktoberfest is brilliant - me and my friend went last year - we stayed in a hostel near the train station - it was less than 20e a night but we booked a month or two in advance as things get very busy. The actual festival is only about a 20 minute walk from the centre and its a massive park with lots of enormous beer tents where you can drink to your hearts content. Beers are expensive (8e or thereabouts) but i had 2 and a half of them and was pissed as a fart. The glasses were bigger than my face. While you are drinking there are German Polka bands playing in the background and you end up chatting to lots of other pissed people from all over. Other than the tents (why would you want more?) there are rollercoasters and bumper cars (dont get on them pissed - bad experience with whiplash) which are brilliant too.

sprinkles

Sounds like fun.

Cheers

SP

pugwall

I went last year with a group of about 10. It was a mad weekend! I would definately recommend it. We stayed in a hostel about 10 mins walk from the festival. Book your accom now - The city will be booked out by september. Be sure to get down to the festival early. You have to there early (as in before 12 midday) to get into one of the tents. The queue's can be quite big later on in the day. The beer is expensive but you get litres instead of pints.
You get to chat to all sorts of interesting people from all over the world. Go man!

Nephew

went last september, its sheer madness, in a good way. we did no forward planning, we booked tickets to frankfurt and let fate guide us to munich. when we arrived rather than booking the most direct route from frankfurt to munich we opted for the cheapest which worked out at 13 or 17e for the train ticket, which involved switching trains 5 times.

when we finally arrived in munich everywhere was booked months in advance, fortunately we brought some tents and eventually found a camping site. theres nothing like arriving at a camping site after 11pm, p*ssing down rain, and trying to pitch your first tent in complete darkness on a tiny patch of land while trying to avoid tripping on other tents.

it was f*cking freezing and pissed rain for 4 nights, theres no better feeling than going to sleep at 4am in a freezing, wet tent and waking up at 7am drenched to the bone to do it all again, all the while watching in amazement as you see topless aussies having a barbie and lashing back bottles of beer.

the festival itself seems pretty tame, by 1pm it starts to get crazy. by 6pm you'll be jumping on tables singing queen songs while people are lying passed out on the table.

watch out for the bouncers they are pure eurotrash who wouldnt think twice of kicking the crap out of you. i think the steins cost 8e but its sort of compulsory to tip the waitress, so you may as well say each stein will set you back 10e.