A reader favorite from 2009 that is sure to get you excited to travel to Germany!

Oktoberfest in Munich is the mother of all drinking festivals. It might just also be the origin of a slew of clichés about Germans and their culture.

Take lederhosen. It just wouldn’t be Oktoberfest if there were no men in short leather overalls celebrating under the massive blue and white Oktoberfest tents. Lederhosen are a traditional costume tied to the German-speaking Alpine regions since the middle ages. Outside of Bavaria, the occasional lederhosen-wearing gentleman may appear in public, but it’s rare and the men are probably over 60.

Oompah music played by a band of tubas and trumpets while beer drinkers link arms and sway to the oom-pah beat is another must-have at Oktoberfest. Does that mean Germans from Berlin to the Black Forest break out the tuba at the first opportunity? Hardly. Schlager is the music of choice when Germans gather to celebrate. These syrupy pop hits from the 1950s to today are branded into the minds of most Germans, who sing along once the beer is flowing.

Speaking of beer, the beer stein is a favorite souvenir from Germany – the stein with its hinged lid was a 15th century Bavarian attempt to keep the flies away during plague times. But today, if Germans aren’t drinking their beer out of the bottle, they drink it out of a glass – so finding a classic stein outside of a souvenir shop or selected areas of Bavaria is hard. At Oktoberfest, beer is served in a Maß, a liter of lager in one fat glass mug. (Beware: Some bartenders at the festival short change you on beer, filling half the glass with foam.)

Oktoberfest in Munich is the mother of all drinking festivals. It might just also be the origin of a slew of clichés about Germans and their culture.

Take lederhosen. It just wouldn’t be Oktoberfest if there were no men in short leather overalls celebrating under the massive blue and white Oktoberfest tents. Lederhosen are a traditional costume tied to the German-speaking Alpine regions since the middle ages. Outside of Bavaria, the occasional lederhosen-wearing gentleman may appear in public, but it’s rare and the men are probably over 60.

Oompah music played by a band of tubas and trumpets while beer drinkers link arms and sway to the oom-pah beat is another must-have at Oktoberfest. Does that mean Germans from Berlin to the Black Forest break out the tuba at the first opportunity? Hardly. Schlager is the music of choice when Germans gather to celebrate. These syrupy pop hits from the 1950s to today are branded into the minds of most Germans, who sing along once the beer is flowing.

Speaking of beer, the beer stein is a favorite souvenir from Germany – the stein with its hinged lid was a 15th century Bavarian attempt to keep the flies away during plague times. But today, if Germans aren’t drinking their beer out of the bottle, they drink it out of a glass – so finding a classic stein outside of a souvenir shop or selected areas of Bavaria is hard. At Oktoberfest, beer is served in a Maß, a liter of lager in one fat glass mug. (Beware: Some bartenders at the festival short change you on beer, filling half the glass with foam.)

It’s just a white shed and a stack of sandbags filled with concrete, a replica of Checkpoint Charlie. Visitors to this traffic island on Friedrichstrasse pose from two directions – west and east – because they’re standing on the old symbolic border of the two Berlins.

Checkpoint Charlie was for diplomats, Allied military and foreign tourists wanting to get into East Berlin, and that’s the source of its mystique.

Today’s Cold War buffs have to be content with photos by the 1960s-era replica shed, or browse through the private collections of the nearby Haus am Checkpoint Charlie – and maybe a visit to the Allied Museum in Berlin’s Zehlendorf district, where the original Checkpoint Charlie building is on display.

The huge portrait photographs over Checkpoint Charlie are of two soldiers – one American, one Soviet – symbolize the Big Brother military presence of Cold War Berlin.

Little known fact – the young Soviet guard isn’t Soviet at all; the photo was taken in 1994, three years after the fall of the Soviet Union. He’s wearing the uniform of the Russian Federation.

Promises to God are notoriously hard to keep. The townspeople of Oberammergau in the Bavarian Alps have not only kept their renaissance promise, they’ve turned it into euros and cents. Flashback to 1633. Oberammergau was a stop on the market road between Augsburg and Venice. When the plague hit, the town elders swore to heaven: Protect us and we’ll do a play about Jesus’ crucifixion every ten years. Read the rest of this entry »

The medieval tale goes like this: The song of a rat catcher’s flute lures the rats of Hamelin into the waters of the Weser River. The town elders renege on their promise to pay him, so the piper sought revenge by playing a different tune. Legend has it that 130 children danced to his music out the city gates into a cave in the hills nearby. They were never seen again.

There are versions of the tale with a happier ending, and one of them is for the city of Hamelin itself, which has used its 800-year-old tale to bolster its image and its economy. Unlike most towns, Hamelin seems to love rats. The motif is everywhere: little rats painted on the sidewalk to guide visitors through town, rat-shaped bread in the bakery window, chocolate rats on a stick for the kids.

But was the legend true? Read the rest of this entry »

Sitting down to a white sausage (Weisswurst) at Munich’s Hofbräuhaus is more of a complex undertaking than you might think. What exactly is the right way to eat the plump white “wurst?” With your fingers? A fork? Do you cut it into pieces before dipping it into mustard, or do you dunk the whole thing?

Expert opinions on Weisswurst-eating differ. But fear not; the Hofbräuhaus, the hall where beer used to be brewed for the kings of Bavaria – and where Hitler began his rise to power in 1920 – won’t expel anyone for a sausage faux pas.

Read the rest of this entry »

Say Auf Wiedersehen to the UK as we depart for our new series on Deutschland.

Join us over the next couple weeks as we explore Berlin, the capital of once-divided Germany, visit the replica of Checkpoint Charlie and dine on the traditional Weisswurst at Munich’s Hofbräuhaus.

On the journey learn about the German cliché of lederhosen, experience the once-in-a-decade Passion Play in Oberammergau and discover the history behind the legend of the Pied Piper.

Enjoy your tour of the Rhineland…

Most people know the namesakes for the world’s most famous churches. St. Paul’s Cathedral is named after St. Paul. St. Peter’s Basilica is named after…yes, St. Peter. But Nuremberg’s oldest pilgrimage church carries the name of a saint even devout people may not know – St. Sebald. He’s the patron saint of Nuremberg, and his relics rest in a golden tomb under a magnificent bronze canopy in the church. Who was St. Sebald, and what did he do to be so honored? Read the rest of this entry »

In Germany, it’s not all about schnitzel and beer. For true “foodies,” the entire year is full of unique culinary highlights and dishes served only for a short time in the proper season. A traveler visiting at any time of the year can join the Germans and tuck into these specialties. Spring: Germans everywhere equate the real coming of spring with Spargel, or white asparagus. Boiled spargel enjoyed by many with just a bit of melted butter, a potato and a slice or two of ham. During Spargelzeit (asparagas time – May through June), cooks get creative with the delicate stalks, offering spargel pasta, spargel soup, spargel casserroles and so on. Read the rest of this entry »

During World War II, Americans soldiers in occupied Germany got a booklet called the “Pocket Guide to Germany” that explained the ins and outs of occupation. In 1944, it read read: “Don’t forget that you’re ordered into Germany now partly because your fathers forgot so soon what the war was about last time.”The Kaiser Wilhelm Memorial Church in Berlin’s Charlottenburg district is the eternal reminder. It was an unremarkable late 19th Century church until the allies bombed it in 1943. Read the rest of this entry »