During the time I was stationed in Germany we managed to attend at least one Oktoberfest in Munich (München in Deutsch) in Sep 1986. Bettina and I went, while my mother-in-law babysat the kids. It was a long drive and so we had to leave the house early. Although we had not been in Munich before, it was easy to find where the Oktoberfest grounds were. Parking was a tad hard to find so we ended up at a Park Garage at the opposite end of the Fussgänger Zone (pedestrian zone) from where the Oktoberfest grounds were. There was a bit of excitement getting into the garage as the camper just in front of us was too tall for the entrance and ended up getting the top of his camper crunched!!! 😲 Good grief!
It was quite the walk getting from the Park Garage to the Oktoberfest grounds but well worth it. Although we had to traverse the pedestrian zone which ran through a major shopping area, we didn't waste our time going into any of the stores. I mean, what the heck, we can go into stores anywhere, it's Oktoberfest we came here to see! We spent perhaps four hours there at the fest and my overall impression was: it's a great place to eat, drink, and listen to oompah bands. There were a few carnival type rides but not that many to my recollection and of course there were huge beer tents all over serving up a variety of foods - not everything is bratwurst and sauerkraut! It's a bit daunting and a bit depressing. Why depressing? Well, this was a day trip and as I was driving I couldn't drink a lot. Bettina is not a heavy drinker by any means, so we had our obligatory 1liter stein of brew and that was about it. As for food, let's just say neither of us are real big eaters - there's only so much we can cram into our guts on any given day. Still, it was enjoyable and we liked seeing all the sights and taking in the atmosphere. Unfortunately I haven't yet gotten around to scanning the photos from our visit but I do have these stein photos. Our trip was planned as a day-trip from the very beginning and Bettina and I had to make that l-o-n-g drive from Munich to the Westerwald, so as much fun as it all was we had to leave. I think we left the grounds around 2PM-3PM-ish and started our long trek to the Park Garage.
When ordering a beer at any of the tents, you will get it served in one of these plain 1liter clear glass steins. I have impressions of two things when walking outside of the tents: beer steins and drunken beer drinkers littering the ground all over!! 😂 These clear glass mugs appear to be made by 'SB' - a firm I have yet to positively identify. I could've picked up a hundred of these laying around and brought them back as souvenirs but as it is I have only the one I used. Bettina didn't want to keep hers.
While beer is commonly served in the clear glass steins, every tent has a sales area where the official Oktoberfest ware is sold and this is what was being offered in 1986. The stein was made by Rastal, a firm I'm more familiar with as it is located in Höhr-Grenzhausen, not far from Bettina's house in the Westerwald, and we have been to their ceramic museum.
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