Weekend Excursions - First month in Europe Posted on: 5th October 2016 :: Photo Credits: Silva, Prayaag, Gaurav, Sagar, Pabitra, Manish, Alap, Sarthak, Kavitha ::
Preface
Travelogue of weekend excursions taken during first month of exchange semester at RWTH Aachen, Germany (September 2016-17)
Continued from: Weekend 2, Vaals (Netherlands)
Weekend : 3
Location: Munich, Germany
The famous beer festival ‘Oktoberfest’ in Munich was scheduled to begin from 17th September 2016. It is the world’s largest folk festival running from mid September to first weekend of October, with over 6 million people attending the festival and drinking a hell lot of beer!. We were eager to go to Munich for the opening day of this festival (even though many of us were teetotalers) as it featured many exciting events, apart from the beer-action. We decided to go with Studifahrten for this 'Oktoberfest' Munich trip. Studifahrten is a company which organizes budget tours for students in Europe
We boarded Studifahrten's double decker bus from the landmark ‘Super-C’ building in Aachen on Friday night. As we had reached the boarding point an hour before departure, we were able to grab the premium ‘balcony’ seats on the upper deck. These seats provided panoramic views, and also had bigger legroom. The night journey across Germany was peaceful as we relaxed in our seats and enjoyed the night landscapes.
The bus stopped in a couple of cities to pick up other passengers and reached Munich early in the morning on Saturday. The weather in Munich was cloudy and a bit cold, with drizzles expected throughout the day. But the rain couldn’t stop our excitement and enthusiasm to explore this capital and largest city of Germany's ‘Bavaria’ state. We walked from ZOB (Central bus station) to Munich Hauptbahnof (Central Railway station), enjoying the first glimpses of the city. We bought a group day ticket for public transport in Munich and decided to start our sightseeing tour from the famous ‘Allianz arena’. The home of Germany’s most famous football club: FC Bayern Munich! This futuristic stadium is widely known for it’s exterior of inflated ETFE plastic panels and it is the first stadium in the world with a full colour changing exterior. It's the dream of every football fan to visit this stadium and watch a game here.
It was a spectacular sight indeed! The guided tours of the stadium and FC Bayern experience center were closed, as it was a game day. We tried to get game tickets with the help of an official, but later dropped the idea as it was a costly affair.
After roaming around the Allianz arena for about an hour, we left towards our next destinations: BMW Museum and the Olympiapark, both situated in the Olympiazentrum area. The BMW museum had a hefty entry fee so we decided to skip it and visited the neighbouring ‘BMW Welt’. BMW has recently opened this building to complement the company’s state of the art museum and the building has really impressive architecture, both inside and outside. A wide range of spectacular BMW cars were showcased inside and we couldn’t stop ourselves from clicking pictures from every possible angle.
There was also an ‘Augmented reality’ exhibit named ‘BMW vision’ where we could click photos with a virtual futuristic car.
Next to the BMW Welt, the ‘Olympiapark’ spreads across a huge area. Built for the 1972 Olympics, the park is now the hotspot for sports, music and leisure. The uniquely constructed rooftop and stadiums are truly legendary!
After visiting the Olympia park, we went straight to the most happening place in the city: the ‘Oktoberfest area’ in Theresienwiese . It was forbidden to carry backpacks inside the area, so we decided to split in two groups: teetotalers and drinkers. Five of us (teetotalers) went in first, while others stayed outside with our luggage.
The atmosphere inside the Oktoberfest area was extremely energetic and cheerful! In spite of the continuous rain, thousands of people were roaming in this huge area. The streets and shops were bustling with young couples and groups, giving it a feel of world’s largest fun fair.
A monumental, bronze cast statue named ‘Bavaria’ (female personification of the bavarian homeland) situated on a hill above the Theresienwiese added to the spectacle.
After enjoying the awesome ‘feel’ of Oktoberfest for more than an hour, we had to turn back (unwillingly!) and let the ‘drinkers’ group’ enter the area. As they went in, we teetotalers took shelter below the canopy of a house and watched the tradionally-dressed people exiting the Oktoberfest area. Some of them were shouting jovially to express their happiness while others were too drunk to walk straight :P
After the drinkers’ group returned, we went back to the hauptbahnhof and boarded the metro towards : ‘Marienplatz’. This central area of the city looked amazing in the lights with the spectacular twin onion-domed towers of the ‘Frauenkirche’ cathedral in the background.
We walked up to the ‘Frauenkirche’, the Gothic cathedral and parish church, and also a distinctive landmark of this Bavarian capital. We sat inside for half an hour, relaxing (we had walked more than 15kms in a single day!), and connecting with the inner divinity.
As the clock struck 8PM, we headed back to the bus and departed towards Aachen with wonderful memories of a day-well-spent-in-Munich!