“It’s not like I’m trying to put goulash in my pocket”

Well, I’m not drinking beer for a while. At least German beer. And definitely not four liters of it.

We left Liechtenstein in the morning to head towards Munich, or München, for Oktoberfest. The weather was pretty crummy but hey, if we’re not hiking, but rather drinking all day in tents, then I guess some bad weather will suffice. We asked our AirBnB host to check in early so we could leave our bags behind while we went into the city. After taking a wrong train and some traffic towards Munich, we made it into the city around 1 o’clock and followed the crowd of lederhosen and dirdel-wearing Bavarians towards the festivities. All of a sudden, there it was – Oktoberfest. It really is just a big carnival with huge beer tents and festive games. We unfortunately weren’t wearing Bavarian attire but I’d say only about 50% of the people were dressed up. Grabbing a quick bratwurst sandwich, we headed into our first tent: Hofbrau House. The moment we walked in, I kind of felt like I was back at Busch Gardens amusement park in the German hall fest (the Europe themed park in Virginia). It was early enough that there were still empty tables and we ended up sitting next to an American family from Philadelphia. We ordered our first liters of Oktoberfest beer and people watched for quite some time, noting the occasional moments when intoxicated men chugged a whole liter in mere seconds, or when everyone stood up and began to chant Bavarian song. After a little bit of time and a lot of beer, we bid our goodbyes for the second tent. At this point around 3, the tents were starting to get more full. Luckily, we found two seats at the long tables next to some more English-speaking beer pals. We conversed for a bit, watched some guy at our table chug a liter in less time than it took me to say “wow,” and left for the third tent. By this point, everywhere was very full and all of the people in the tent were fairly rude and didn’t let us Americans sit with them. We decided it was probably a good time for dinner anyways and went to Hofbrau restaurant downtown. The restaurant was absolutely massive and there was live entertainment in the hall we ended up sitting in. I didn’t know this prior but apparently Hitler gave a lot of speeches, some fairly well-known, from HB. We split sausage and sauerkraut, a salad, and yet another liter before walking through downtown a little. At this point, it was pretty dark and we didn’t see much. We decided to hop on a train and try our luck at another tent one more time. We ended up going back to the Hofbrau tent at Oktoberfest and sealing our hangover fate for the next morning. We stayed until closing and it was so fun to see everyone so drunkenly cheerful and dancing and laughing. We took the train back to our AirBnB (we’ve become pretty good at European public transportation) and went to bed around midnight.

The next morning, waking up with a slightly pounding head and upset stomach, we set forth towards Dachau to visit one of the various concentration camps from the war. We basically drove through town and were right next to the camp – I kept thinking, were the prisoners confined to a camp that was a few kilometers from town, and how did no one realize what ever happened? We parked and entered the camp, which had been turned largely into a museum. The original barracks were all torn down but there was a reconstructed barrack to show what the living quarters looked like. The prisoners were forced to sleep in close quarters on wooden bunkbeds with minimal padding. On top of working 12-15 hours a day, the prisoners had to keep their living quarters completely clean and tidy or else face punishment. While the camp was a work camp and not exclusively a “liquidation” camp, executions still occurred here and conditions were so bad that the prisoners would rather run towards the fence and be shot rather than endure any more hardship. The number is probably higher, but at least 41,000 Jews, anti-Nazis, priests, gypsies and others lost their lives in Dachau, the first concentration camp created in 1933. It’s hard to believe that this camp was active less than 70 years ago.

After Dachau, we continued on to Salzburg, Austria, a place I was especially looking forward to because of The Sound of Music. We didn’t get there until the afternoon, but we ended up getting tickets to take the funicular up to the Castle Hohensalzburg. The castle was founded back in 1077 and eventually evolved into what it is today, making it one of the biggest fortresses in the continent. After walking around the castle, we went back into town where they were having another festival – Saint Rupert’s Festival. It was akin to a smaller Oktoberfest, with beer tents, rides and small wooden huts selling local products. The festival has been celebrated in Salzburg since the 1400s, and it is an authentic folk tradition meant to honor Saint Rupert, the patron saint of Salzburg in the 8th century. We decided to go to the Stiegl tent, a local Salzburg brewery dating back centuries. We got a meal of sauerkraut, dumplings, pork and bratwurst. Man, Bavarian food is heavy… but good… but salty. After splitting a radler, we called it quits for the night and split out to the AirBnB.

The next morning, we raced into town to be at Mirabellplatz by 9:30 to see if there were two spots available on Fraulein Maria’s bicycle tours. Luckily a group of nine didn’t show, so we were in! We mounted our cruiser bikes and listened in to the safety talk, and we all had to give our names, where we were from and our favorite song from the movie. Wouldn’t you know there was a family, half from Denver, half from Nashville, and the kids living three blocks from us in Denver. Of course! The first part of the tour went through the city and we stopped frequently to look at all the filming locations. There was the Mirabell Gardens, where the end of the Do-Re-Mi song was filmed and Julie Andrews held her head as she went for a really high note. Then we went on through the old town, seeing the location where the children were practicing for the festival with uncle Max and he telling them they would be hugely successful. We were right next to the music hall where the family sang in both real life and the movie, which used to serve as Salzburg’s old horse stables. Within the same square was the tunnel that Rolf ran though to deliver a telegram to Max (and totally blow off Liesl). We then went on to see the cemetery that inspired the gravestones the family hid behind in the abbey while being pursued by the Nazis. That actual scene was filmed in Hollywood (as were most of the indoor scenes). Continuing on, we climbed a high hill to the abbey that the true Maria attended before going to be a governess for the captain in real life. So many tourists over the years came to the abbey, rang the doorbell and asked for Fraulein that the abbey eventually moved the front entrance to another part of the building.

This was the part of the tour where we left the old town of the city and began to explore the country side, meaning we started blasting the soundtrack through a speaker, and taking turns having the speaker in our baskets. It was so fun! We saw Schloss Leopoldskron, which was used for the rear view of the von Trapp house (where the baroness and the children drank the pink lemonade). We also saw the Frohnburg Palace, which was used for the front facade of the house – it’s now used to house international music students. Finally, we saw the gazebo where Sixteen going on Seventeen was filmed – fun fact, Liesl’s foot swung through the window and she was bandaged for the scene in the movie. The tour was great and would definitely recommend! The weather held off just long enough for us to finish the four hour tour and get back before it started raining.

Interestingly enough, many Salzburgians boycotted the movie for years and years as the filming crew was quite rude and did as they pleased around town. On one occasion during filming, Nazi flags were flown from prominent buildings without telling anyone prior to doing so – obviously resulting in some confusion and fear as the movie was filmed some 20 years after the war. The real Maria von Trapp was even brought in during filming to give some insights on the non-fiction of everything, but she was very opinionated and the director ended up not inviting her to the movie premiere!

We immediately left for Innsbruck hoping to get away from the weather. Unfortunately, the weather wasn’t much better there. We ended up walking around old town a little and heading towards the local brewery (of course). We also went to a restaurant called Stiffskeller, located in the heart of old town. We ordered a bunch of Tyrolean food, including boiled sausage, German potato salad, and goulash (hence the blog title because Jared tried to pocket a leftover pretzel in his pocket).