And Our Winter Holiday in Munich!

Okay so it isn't quite Winter in Munich yet but it was VERY cold and a big shock to the system after lovely warm Greece! It also poured with rain AND to top it all off we were sleeping in tents!!

HOWEVER, we had an absolute ball in Munich! Oktoberfest was fantastic! It is HUGE with tonnes of proper amusement park rides (as opposed to the little lame ones you get at fairs) - rollercoasters, a ferris wheel, fun houses and one of the scariest, most sickening rides I have ever been on in my life - USA Skater. You sit in a seat on one of it's five large fingers and it throws you all over the place at a frightening speed!

The many Beer 'Tents' were amazing to see too. They are more like huge halls and were absolutely packed with people. There is an Oompa band in all of them and everyone is standing on chairs and tables singing, dancing, and of course drinking! Everyone drinks out of huge 1 litre steins and the beer is great. It's amazing to see the women who carry out the beer as well - as many as 14 at a time! Impressive!! Unfortunately to get a seat in these tents you need to be there early in the morning so we had to settle with sitting outside in the beer gardens to have our drinks. The beer gardens were still great fun though - everyone chats to everyone else and we met many crazy Germans, Italians and more! What a laugh! To add to the fun all the Germans all dress up in traditional Bavarian outfits and sing lots of Germans songs: Ein Prosit, Ein Prosit...

Some of you may be pleased to hear that we did not spend our entire time drinking there though! We made the most of our time and visited lots of places in and around Munich: Neuschwanstein - the fairytale castle made by King Ludwig II that Disneyland based theirs on, a very sobering experience at Dachau - the first concentration camp in Germany, Andech's Monastry where the monks make beer, a brilliant Third Reich tour that we would recommend anyone to go on, Mike's Bike Tour of the city and of course Hofbrauhaus - the oldest and most famous beer hall in Munich. Munich is a cool city with tonnes to see and do and worth seeing more than just a beer tent!