Sunday, October 03

Early up and off to Munich.
We said goodbye to the 14 who were off to Prague, and then at the airport to the Cartwrights who fly home today.
At the airport we picked up our car - a double upgrade to a VW Passat
. Wahoo! Built in GPS and everything else!
Once we figured out the navigation system, we got to our hotel with no problem. It's the lovely Meridian Hotel in the heart of Munich. A very comfortable room and convenient location.
It's the last day of Oktoberfest and a national holiday, the 20th anniversary of the tearing down of the Berlin Wall.
It is a beautiful sunny, warm day so the streets are packed with lederhosen and dirndl-locals and imports.
We walked to Oktoberfest for lunch and a stroll around the grounds. It was quite the carnival scene. Like a cross between the EX and Burlington's Ribfest on steroids with overcrowded beer halls everywhere. We couldn't get into any of the beer halls, so after picking up some souvenirs, we joined the throngs leaving the grounds and worked our way back to our hotel,
In the late afternoon we asked our concierge about alternatives and he suggested a large beer garden (seats 3000) about 15 minutes walk from the hotel. We had to walk through the main train station to get there - another interesting experience. It was mobbed, but there are many interesting shops and restaurants along one wall and the trains are opposite, right in the main part of the station. No dark stairways leading up and down to other levels and tracks like Union at home.

The beer garden was immense with a small hill in one corner with kids playground very active. We had no experience about how it worked and sat at an empty table hoping to be noticed. After some time, during which several servers had yelled at us in German, the family at the next table told us in very broken English that it was a serving table, so we moved to a larger round table next to them. That got some attention, and we had 3 of the largest mugs of beer I've seen plus pork schnitzel and chicken.
By the time we walked back, stopping at a bakery for pastries, the revelry of the sidewalk crowd was beginning to leave an unpleasant edge so we thought it was time to get off the street.

Photos 3 Oct