After a few blissful days in Chamonix, we were off to Munich. We left our Rick Steves group and found our way, eventually, back to Munich. It took most of the day to travel from Chamonix to Geneva where we caught our flight, had a layover and then finally reach Munich about 10:00 at night... where they lost our bags. SO, needless to say, we weren't in a great mood by the time we finally arrived at our Airbnb. NONETHELESS! We made the most of the two days we had in this incredibly amazing and HUGE city. There was so much to see, but it took us quite some time just to master the public transit, so we will absolutely be going back. We started off the trip with a visit to Oktoberfest. We met up with our friend there who has been attending this event for YEARS and thank goodness he knew exactly what to do! He showed us all around the various tents, told us about the best food stands, helped us figure out how to order beer and get in at a table.. It was awesome. Oktoberfest was an AMAZING experience and not just because of the beer! The culture of the event and the overall family friendly, clean and happy atmosphere were such a breath of fresh air from so many festivals in the states. It is a HUMONGOUS event. Some of the tents can hold up to 10,000 people and most of the tents were at full capacity all day long. The beer is great and only sold in liters and ONLY if you are at a table, so we had to make friends. Beer slingers are constantly making rounds and there are ladies walking around with giant baskets full of HUGE pretzels, pickles, cheese and other veggies all day long. There's live music, dancing, specialty cookies that people wear around their neck (but don't eat) and rides. It was such a great time we came back the second day after we spent the afternoon checking out the Nymphenburg Palace where King Ludwig was born. It's now a giant museum and public park where you can visit the bath house, the "hunting cabin" which is actually a giant and beautiful palace type house itself, view many of their old carriages and sleighs in the stables and many other places among the acres of land. It was a beautiful place and the swans loved the pond in front. We spent the entire afternoon here before heading back to get one last fill over Oktoberfest before leaving bright and early the next day. I can't wait wait to go back and explore so much more of this amazing city <3
