Oktoberfest & Munich 2022

Happy happy Tuesday!

It’s our last day of Fall Break, and we’re waking up at home.  We had the BEST time in Nantucket, buuuuuut back to life as Smith has a football game tonight.

Guess what though?

It’s an all new episode of The Bestie Breakdown!

Today, we’re BREAKING DOWN OUR FIRST TIMER’S GUIDE TO OKTOBERFEST!

Even if you don’t think you’ll ever want to visit Oktoberfest…you should listen 😉 .  We talk about the history, how we did it/what we did/what we would do differently/what we would do the same…all the fun things behind our epic day.

So, you can listen to today’s episode HERE for all the scoop pluuuuuuus…today, Erika and I are sharing our pics from our days in Munich too!

A little podcasting plus a little blogging equals the perfect combination 🙂 .

Let’s do it…

Andrew and I were on one flight to Europe while the Slaughters were on another.  (Long story, they had to fly through London for the NFL, we did not…).  We met up at DFW before our flights, had a toast and then departed 30 minutes apart from each other…fast forward a few flights later…

…and we landed within five minutes of each other in Munich!  We grabbed our luggage, headed to the hotel, showered, changed and went straight to a hearty snack/late lunch 🙂 .

I LOVE GERMAN FOOD SO MUCH!!!!

After we ate, it was time to walk and explore beautiful Munich…starting with the Glockenspiel, of course!

Awwwwwwww!  Germany with our besties?!  It was a trip we had planned and talked about for YEARS!

After a late afternoon of walking and exploring…

…we had dinner reservations at Augustiner Stammhaus for a really authentic and delicious dinner.

It was the perfect way to kick off Munich.

The next morning, we were up bright and early…

…for Oktoberfest!!  Now, I can’t stress this enough, for all of the really specific details, listen to today’s podcast episode, but in a nutshell, Tab and I both wanted to visit Oktoberfest to celebrate our 40th birthdays (his in August, mine in October of last year).  Due to COVID, we had to wait until this year, so needless to say, we were PUMPED to finally be there!

Our travel agency had a tour booked for our day which we LOVED.  We met at 10:00 that morning and had a seven hour tour beginning with a two hour walking tour of the festival including history and backstory (plus later, we had a seat at a table for five hours and a meal).  In my opinion, if you’re a first timer, you really should do a tour just like this one.  It was not only so educational and informative (you don’t just go, you learn why you’re there!), but it allowed us a spot at a table to truly experience everything.

It was cold and rainy but that didn’t stop us!  Rule #1 for attending Oktoberfest?  You have to buy authentic dirndls and lederhosen!  We bought ours HERE and HERE, and they were all so beautifully made and very detailed.  Why are we wearing big gingerbread cookies around our necks?  Those cookies are traditional in Munich annnnnnd that’s how our tour kept up with everyone. Ha!  We were able to eat them at the end 😉 .

Here we go…

We describe in great detail how the grounds looked on our episode today, but to put it simply, it’s like a gigantic state fair.  There are rides, a ferris wheel, food vendors, carnival games, beer, and, of course, the HUGE tents that hold anywhere from 6000 to 10,000 people in each one.  Plus, so much live music!

Here we are inside one of the tents.  We were there early so you can really see the tables without the crowd.  This is one tent with a stage in the middle for live music, a huge commercial kitchen, restrooms, servers and so many decorations.  They put these tents up about three months before Oktoberfest and then take them down after.  They’re so massive, beautiful and impressive.

How cute, right?!

At Oktoberfest in Munich, only beer made in Munich with Munich water is allowed to be sold.  We tried out different beers at the different tents from the different breweries.

During the daytime, there were field trips of children and lots of families at Oktoberfest.

This is the tent where we had a table for five hours.  I think we ended up staying her more like 7 hours.  It was SO FUN!

We were there at tables filled with people from all over the world.  I had such a sense of community there.  We “made friends” with people from Great Britain, South America…it was such a fun way to bond with a larger global community.

This was our spot!  Look how tightly we’re packed in there.  It kept us warm since the air outside was chilly.

We had zero fun. 😉

Love this girl SO MUCH!!

This was the BEST MEAL I’VE EVER HAD.  Yup.  I’ve had a lot of amazing German food, but this was out of this world here in the tent.

YUM!!!!

Our amazing guide for the day!  She was precious!  It was so fun to hang out with her too!

After our time in this tent was over, we “tent hopped” to see the different live musical acts.  We stopped for rides in-between…

…they were trying to dance like the musical guys on the building behind them.

I took videos of inside the other tents (I’ll post them in Stories today!), but our day ended around 9:30 with…

…a ride on the ferris wheel.

When we had finally Oktoberfest-ed enough (almost 12 hours!), we looked at Instagram where several sweet people had commented and told us to eat dinner…

…at this place here, so we took an Uber and ended our night with pizza.

Oktoberfest was something I couldn’t understand until I did it for myself.  Sitting in a tent listening to music and drinking beer all day in a dirndl?  That’s fun?  Yes.  It was one of the MOST FUN experiences I’ve EVER had.

We were up early again the next morning for another full day.  Here was our beautiful hotel.  We loved everything about it from the location down to the service and adorable breakfast spot.

We woke up, ate breakfast and then had one last tour in Munich to…

…Dachau.

This was my second time to visit Dachau and my fourth time to visit a concentration camp.  I’ve said this every time anyone has ever asked me where my favorite place to travel is…I always say, going to concentration camps.  They’re terrible. They’re really terrible.  They’re SO important to visit though.  I just don’t see how anyone can go in and come out unchanged.

We spent the day here before…

…catching a late night flight to London.  PART 2 of our trip coming up soon!

Don’t forget, if you want to go to Oktoberfest or Munich or on vacation outside of the Continental US (with the exception of Disney World!), we can help get you there!  We offer our services to Walt Disney World, Hawaii, all cruises and then any international destination.  Please reach out to MY TRAVEL AGENCY today.

Also, for all the scoop on our trip (loads of details and funny stories!), you can listen to today’s episode HERE or on your favorite podcast platform (Apple, Spotify, etc).

If you missed SEASON 3 EPISODE 1 last week, we BROKE DOWN DOWN THERE (yup, we talked about the lady parts).  You can listen to that episode HERE.

If you want to bring a little Oktoberfest into your own home, I have some simple recipes HERE that are easy, delicious and just might put you in the Oktoberfest mood.

That’s it for this Tuesday! See you girls tomorrow! xx