Cannstatter Volkfest in Stuttgart

In lieu of driving 5 hours to Munich for Oktoberfest this year, D and I opted to give another German beer festival a try for the fall season. Ladies and gentlemen, I give you Cannstatter Volksfest, the world's second largest beer festival. Cannstatter is held in Stuttgart right around the 16-day period that Oktoberfest is going on in Munich, so you definitely don't feel like your missing out on this big festivaling time of year. Fun fact: Oktoberfest isn't celebrated entirely in October. The usual time frame for Wasen (as it's known by the German population) is from mid-September until the first weekend in October. We attended Oktoberfest in Munich on the very last weekend last year and it was nothing short of amazing. This year, we were anxious to see how Cannstatter Volksfest was going to compare. To be quite honest, I could hardly tell a difference! 

The biggest contrast from our time at Oktoberfest and our time at Volksfest was that we actually had tickets for a table in a tent this year. At Oktoberfest, we woke up at the butt-crack of dawn, trained into Munich at 7am, waited in line until the fest grounds opened at 9am and ran like crazy people to the Hofbräu tent to score seats. Thankfully, that worked out well for us...but I was so happy to avoid that rush this year. That's why it's always wise to pre-book a table time in one of the various tents at either festival. In fact, if you're looking to go next year, start booking things at the first of the year. Trust me. Trying your luck at Oktoberfest and at Volksfest is like playing blackjack in Vegas. You might win big...or you might walk home buzz-less.

A little disclaimer before I continue the festivities: I like to use my blog as one giant memory book of our time here in Europe. It's filled with almost every single activity we've taken part in since moving here a little over 2 years ago. I know some of you may get sick of scrolling through so many photos, but since this is my memory book, my place to store the pieces of our travels that I'll look back on forever, I don't limit how many I share. I know, BLOGGER BLASPHEMY! I'm a rule breaker, what can I say? Photos tell a story, and I like to read our story from beginning to end. I just thought I'd put that out there for those minimalists who will surely "x" out of this just a quarter of the way through. And that's ok...more memories for me! For those of you sticking with me (I love you), be on the lookout for fun videos and more stories from our visit to Volksfest throughout the post. :)

As far as the rest of the festival...the tents were all similar to the ones at Oktoberfest. Brightly colored, bustling with people, maß beers (liter beers) overflowing around every corner...the whole shebang. Almost everyone is dressed to the nines in their traditional Bavarian garb (us included...I mean, you HAVE to...it's just not the same fun without the lederhosen) and singing at the top of their lungs every time "Hey Baby" or Ein Prosit" (the traditional "cheers your beer" song, as I like to call it) is played by the band. We had a table time of 11am-4:30pm at the Sonja Merz tent, so we spent most of our day there enjoying maß upon maß of delicious hefeweizens with 20 of our friends from D's office. While the tent wasn't quite as big as the Hofbräu tent at Oktoberfest...it was every bit as fun. I honestly think no matter what tent you're in, it's sure to be a hoppin' party. The Germans are really good at this partying thing. The festival grounds looked a lot like the Oktoberfest grounds (fair rides, games, food tents), maybe just a bit smaller in scale. I also felt like Volksfest was a little less touristy than Oktoberfest. I saw (and heard) fewer drunk Italians, Australians, and Brits than we experienced in Munich. Volksfest felt more German, if that makes any sense.

The tent erupting in "99 Luftballons!"

Try doing that with completely full glasses of beer. The fest waitresses are AMAZING women. I can't get over how many maß they can carry at one time! All the boys tried holding as many empty ones as they could. Clearly not as impressive.

This guy was beyond adorable. I'm not ashamed to say I danced with him a few times. There are no friendlier Germans than the ones you'll find at Wasen. Those girls below, however, ended up falling onto our table and spilling my half maß of beer. That's what you get for JUMPING on a wooden fest bench. J U M P I N G. I swear. 

Use your noggin's, ladies.

Ein Prosit...the ever so popular German drinking song. "A toast to happiness" is it's main theme.

"Ein Prosit, ein Prosit, Der Gemütlichkeit. Ein Prosit, ein Prosit, Der Gemütlichkeit. Eins, zwei, drei, g'suffa! Zicke, zacke, zicke, zacke, hoi hoi hoi! PROST!" 

At 4:30pm they started shooing us all out of the fest tent to start preparing for the 5:00pm reservations to start rolling in. We were herded like cattle out the back door to find the fest grounds looking like the photo below. On a beautiful fall day, you can expect Volksfest (and Oktoberfest) to be jam packed full of people. We pushed and shoved our way through the crowds to wander around the less crowded parts until we finally gave up and decided to start our journey back home.

All in all, Cannstatter Volksfest was every bit as fabulous as Oktoberfest in my book. Granted, if given the opportunity, you should definitely go to Munich and experience the famed Oktoberfest for yourself. But if you've been there, done that...Cannstatter Volksfest will do. If fact, if you're currently in Germany, you've got one last weekend (this coming weekend) to attend Volksfest! Don't miss it!

And if you made it to the end of this post...20,000 awesome points for you. :) 

The Obligatory Oktoberfest Post

I had 3 sound expectations for my first experience at Munich's famed Oktoberfest this year:

1) There'd be beer.

2) There'd be debauchery. And...

3) There'd be boobs.

I'd have to say all those expectations were met--a few even exceeded, but we won't get into all that. In a nutshell, Oktoberfest was awesome. One crazy beer tent after another all housed on the largest fairgrounds I've ever stepped foot on. What's not to love about beer, food, costumes, and carnival rides? Seriously, someone tell me so I can laugh at correct you. There's nothing not to love.

So, I'm sure many of you are wondering what it's really like in there. How the heck do you get a seat in a beer tent? What's with all the German garb? Why in the world do they only sell a liter of beer and not anything smaller? I have no idea the answer to that last one, but the rest I'll be happy to fill you in on. Let's take a journey through the day in the life of an Oktoberfest patron, shall we? 

*Disclaimer: this isn't the typical day of every Oktoberfest patron, it's really just how things went down for us. Also, this post is going to be incredibly long. Just go with it. It'll be like you were right there with me. Promise.*

6:00am (also known as the butt-crack of dawn):

Wake up, put on your sweet new dirndl (traditional Bavarian dress for ladies) or your wicked cool lederhosen (traditional Bavarian outfit for men), and take one last good look at yourself in the mirror. I promise, you won't look the same when you come home that night.

7:00am:

Scarf down a pastry and hop on the train in Garmisch-Partenkirchen (because we refused to pay $250 a night for hotel room in Munich) and travel an hour and 20 minutes through the Bavarian countryside to the Munich Hauptbahnhof.

8:30am:
Shake off the sleep and make your way to the Oktoberfest grounds...in the pouring rain...wearing a dirndl. 
And no, the giant cookies didn't help.

 9:00am:

Enter the fest grounds as they open up the beer tents to patrons and realize you might actually get a seat because there are NO LINES...ANYWHERE! Then, make a beeline towards the infamous Hofbräu Fest Tent and pray for tables without "Reserviert"signs.
{Side note: They ONLY serve beer inside the beer tents and in the tents beer garden, so if you wanna drink, you gotta get a seat! To get a seat inside the beer tents you have to do one of two things: A) Make a table reservation with the beer tent you want to sit in, which you must do MONTHS in advance to even think of getting a spot...OR...B) Wake up early, wait in line, and pray to God you get a seat somewhere, anywhere. We chose the latter and thankfully it worked for us. This was the perk about coming on the last day of Oktoberfest, on a Sunday, and in the pouring rain. Coming during the week or in bad weather conditions significantly raises your chances of getting a seat in a tent. You also don't need a reservation for the beer gardens, so make sure you wander around those if the tents are full. If you've got lots of moxie and wanna try your luck at getting in good with someone who has a table reservation to try and snag a seat, by all means, give it a whirl! I have no moxie, so thankfully we didn't have to go that route.

 9:30am:
Claim your table and high five your friends because you just got the best seat in the most sought after Oktoberfest tent without reservations! Then proceed to find the coolest waitress in the world and order yourself a massive beer...the Oktoberfest festivities have officially begun!

10:30am:
As the tent begins to fill with rowdy foreigners, you realize you haven't eaten anything but a pastry all morning, so you order yourself a half a chicken...and then another liter of beer. Duh.

11:15am:
Take a million pictures of yourself and your surroundings. You may only get to be here once!

12:00pm:
Eat again, because, you know, you've been drinking since 9:30am. This is also when the oompah band begins to play! First song, "Ein Prosit," Germany's favorite drinking song!
Ein Prosit, Ein Prosit, der Gemütlichkeit...
Ein Prosit, Ein Prosit, der Gemütlichkeit!
Loosely translated means: A toast, A toast, to...{wait for it}...cheerfulness, socializing, giddiness, hospitality, festivity, and a sense of belonging. One giant almost unpronounceable word to convey a myriad of feelings. I get it. Can't say it, but I get it. Everyone else in the tent gets it, too. Just watch.

1:00pm:

Watch a bunch of people do the liter challenge. What's the liter challenge? Glad you asked! Brave souls stand up on the fest benches and announce to the world that they're going to attempt to chug a liter of beer (the only size of beer sold in the tents) without having the glass leave their lips once...complete task, the whole tent explodes into cheers and applause! Fail, and get booed into oblivion. Seriously. Funniest thing I've ever seen. We only saw a handful of failures. Lots of winners, some girls even!

1:45pm:

Make your way to the bathroom for what seems like the 4,000th time. And on your way, dance with complete strangers. Folks, it happened EVERY. SINGLE. TIME. I went to the restroom. By the end of the day I think I'd danced with everyone in that friggin' tent. You'll never find more friendly people than at Oktoberfest. Video proof below. {And don't worry, I never went to the bathroom alone. Ladies, never be alone at Oktoberfest. Buddy system all the way.}

2:30pm:

Contemplate leaving the tent to try your luck in other tents...then realize this IS the coolest tent, why would you ever want to leave?!? So, you order another beer and the band busts out a little Dirty Dancing. Have I mentioned how much I love this country?

3:15pm:

Meet up with friends and enjoy the camaraderie!

4:00pm:

Tap out. You've been drinking and dancing and Prost!-ing since 9:30am. Besides, there's a whole festival full of carnival rides, giant pretzels, and 13 other large beer tents (21 small tents) to see outside. We managed to squeeze in to see 4 other tents, but the Hofbräu tent was our favorite by far.

The Löwenbräu Tent

The Paulaner Tent

The Schottenhamel Tent

A bunch of other tents...

And the boys smoking cigars. Handsome, right? Moving on...

5:00pm:

Become a celebrity. You are asked to take photos with every random passerby who's not in a dirndl or lederhosen, and of course, you oblige. :) We have no idea who these people were.

6:00pm:

After wandering the fest grounds and beer tents for a while, you end up at the Hippodrome Biergarten for another liter nightcap.

 7:30pm

Surrender to the Oktoberfest gods. You're done. Spent. Both in body and wallet. Time to hop aboard the train and head home with all the rest of the party poopers. This, my friends, is the sign of a good freakin' time.

So, there you have it. Germany's Oktoberfest in a nutshell. Friends, if you haven't already, add it to your bucket list. It's the party of all parties. I've never seen anything like it! And even if you're not a beer drinker or party goer, there's really something for everyone outside of the beer tents. Food, souvenirs, carnival rides...the list just goes on and on. It's really the experience of a lifetime! For more information about scoring a seat, enjoying Wiesn (that's Oktoberfest to the Germans), and some common Oktoberfest misconceptions, head on over to Ifs, Ands, & Butts blog! She's been to Oktoberfest 4 times and is basically an expert, I've decided. As for next year, we'll be attending Munich's Oktoberfest counterpart in Stuttgart...VOLKSFEST! I'm excited to see how it will compare. Until then, drink responsibly. Tschüss!