Day 9 - Reutte, Austria and Munich, Germany - Oktoberfest

We started out our day in Austria where our hotel is, had breakfast there (had an interesting experience trying to boil our own eggs), and then headed to Neuschwanstein’s Castle for a tour. This is the castle that Walt Disney modeled Cinderella’s Castle after. It was build by King Ludwig only about 150 years ago. It was never finished, though, since the king died before it could be. We toured all the rooms that were finished and it was really neat. We chose to walk up tot the castle from the parking lot and that was about a half an hour all uphill. Everyone was sweating and tired by the time we got up there. A few people took a tram and I think that may have been the best way to go! On the way down, we smelled something that smelled like funnel cake and it was a big ball looking thing that resembled a corn fritter, but it was a cream cheese ball. We got three of those and they were wonderful! We shared one of them with some folks on the tour.

We loaded up on a different bus with another Rick Steves tour to go to Oktoberfest. Jennifer had packed us all a bag lunch to eat on the bus, which we did. This other tour group seemed to be nice, but were mostly all older than us. They were on the 2-week Best of Europe tour. We got to Oktoberfest and it was the hugest fair/carnival I’ve ever seen. Jennifer’s idea was that we would try to get a table in one of the tents so that we could get the true Oktoberfest experience. We walked in to one tent and there was not a table to be had. We walked into another tent and Cindy and Jennifer finagled us a table from one group of guys that were all wearing red checked shirts and brown leather lederhosen. Most of the group got those huge 1 liter mugs of beer. A couple of the German guys had us all sing and dance on the benches and then the tables! So we can now say we danced on the table at Oktoberfest in Munich. Never thought I would say that. And all under the influence of a cola and orange mix called Schwipp Schwapp. (At least that’s what I was under the influence of. Can’t say the same for the rest of the group!)

After the beer hall, we walked around and rode the gigantic ferris wheel. That was really neat because we could see the whole Oktoberfest and the city of Munich. We were on the ferris wheel with two ladies from Munich and they said that whole area is also really cool at Christmas. They decorate it beautifully and everybody comes there from the end of November on. There were tons of really fun looking rides there that we didn’t have time to ride, unfortunately.

Got on the other Rick Steves tour bus and headed back towards our hotel in Austria. A good time was had by all. We ate dinner tonight all together in the hotel at 8:00. Had a spaghetti type meal that had mushrooms on it, but of course, I didn’t eat the mushrooms. We will be heading out tomorrow morning at 8:15 for Venice.