Read on for fairytale towns, Oktoberfest pics and castles.

We arrived in Cologne via bus from Brussels to begin our nine days in Germany. Cologne is a beautiful city with the most incredible Cathedral we have ever seen. With it taking more than 600 years to build and survive the wars that it did made it even more impressive. We relaxed here for two days before catching the train to Wurzburg.

Wurzburg is a relaxed city surrounded by vineyards (Riesling is widely produced here) in central Germany. We stayed here for two nights enjoying the city one day and taking the train to Rothenburg O de Tauber on the second day.

Rothenburg has got to be one of my favourite cities we visited. It is an incredibly picturesque fairytale style village. With places like this, it’s usually just the Main Street and a few off it which are perfectly preserved but this is not the case with Rothenburg. The entire old centre surrounded by original walls is perfectly preserved and picturesque at every turn. We spent hours wandering here feeling like we were in a life size gingerbread village. To add to to the charm, it has the most incredible Christmas stores I have ever seen. No pictures allowed but it was like being transported to a magical Christmas wonderland, even in September. We walked the perimeter of the city’s old walls, ate sausages, browsed the shops, and sampled some local wine and other treats.

The history of Rothenburg is interesting too, with the town being saved from bomb and war damage because the Mayor gave it up to Allied troops without a fight, under the conditions that it was not to be destroyed. This was agreed upon because both sides realised how special it was.

After one more night in Wurzburg we headed to Munich where we were to meet our friends for Oktoberfest. The city of Munich is beautiful and still quite traditional considering how big it is. The train station there was like an airport terminal. We arrived for the second weekend of Oktoberfest, the largest folk festival in the world which has been running since 1810 to celebrate the marriage of a king and princess.

We purchased our traditional clothing ensembles in Cologne because we knew it would be too busy with meeting our friends to have time to do it in Munich. In bed early on Friday night we were up at the crack of dawn on Saturday to arrive at the grounds by 7:30am. Only a certain number of tables are unreserved (reserving a table is really difficult for foreigners) so its first come, first serve if you want a table inside the beer tents for the day (which you do!). We spent day one at a table in Lowenbrau tent with five of our friends from home. We took it easy on day one since we were going for two days in a row. Beer is only served in 1 litre steins so you need to be careful you don’t end up falling off the tables, like many Australians did 🙄. We left the tent around 5pm to enjoy the fairgrounds which are amazing! We had sausages, popcorn and even managed to go on a roller coaster.

Day one

Up early again on day two, feeling fresh we were ready to go again an hour later than the previous day. We got in at opening which was 10:00am and secured a table in the Hacker-Pschorr tent. This tent had cool decor and more of a local vibe inside with not as many tourists. Here we settled in for the day, enjoying a hot lunch of ox meat and cheesy pasta with several more beers than the previous day. This led to us dancing on the tables with other locals at our table until 9pm. After this it was time for more fairground rides. We went on this spinning ride and maybe because of the beers Matt thought it would be a good idea to take photos on his phone. He pulled it off without losing it! The photos get slightly sloppier as the night goes on

Our tips for attending Oktoberfest:

⁃ Wear the traditional clothing (NOT costume shop/ look sharp style ones though)

⁃ Get to the event two hours before opening on Saturday and on opening on Sunday if you want a table in the tents, they are completely full by 11:00am and once they are full it’s very hard to get in.

⁃ The tents are where the best atmosphere is, they have an amazing life band.

⁃ Eat in the tents, the food is more expensive but way nicer and you need it to keep on drinking.

⁃ Tip your beer ladies/men well, they will make sure you’re looked after if you do (we tipped 2-4 euros per litre).

⁃ Don’t drink too much, you’ll end up sick and probably kicked out.

⁃ The tents we went to only served beer by the litre or water so if you don’t like beer, reconsider.

⁃ Bring your own small, empty water bottle to refill. Water is incredibly expensive to buy.

⁃ Wear comfortable shoes

⁃ Definitely explore the fair grounds and go on the rides, ideally after you’ve had your fun in the tents. Once you decide to leave the tent you probably won’t get back in so keep that in mind.

After an amazing two days of beer, sausages, pretzels and dancing we were very ready for a vege juice and some r&r in Fussen.

Saying goodbye to our crew we caught the train a couple of hours South to the small town of Fussen. Fussen borders Austria and is surrounded by beautiful alps. We explored the town and had an early night and the following day visited Neuschwanstein Castle. The castle was built by the king of Barvaria as an escape from his public life. It is said to have inspired Walt Disneys Cinderella and Sleeping Beauty castles.

As always we arrived super early and as always missed all of the crowds. Getting up early sucks at the time but has never failed us with having a relaxed experience at major attractions without the tour buses. We viewed the castle from the bridge and did an hour and a bit hike up to a nice viewing point.

In the afternoon we had coffee in Fussen town and went for a walk to Austria. The following morning we caught the train back to Munich to catch a bus to Milan, Italy.

Italy 🇮🇹 is coming next!

or maybe Greece 🇬🇷