Carnival in Munich

Last year, we explained to you why – perhaps unexpectedly for many – Germany is actually a great destination for Mardi Gras celebrations. While they mainly centre on the Rhineland, with the Cologne Carnival grabbing all the headlines – Munich too has a traditional pre-Lent splurge referred to as Fasching.

Although the principle is the same as in Germany’s western cities (i.e. a big blow-out before the fast involving lots of food, beer, and antics), carnival in Munich is actually quite a different beast. For a start, a lot of Munich’s best carnival activities actually take place in the weeks prior to Shrove Tuesday, not during it. The city hosts a range of balls to celebrate the run up to the Lenten week, but “ball” in Bavaria doesn’t generally tend to mean tuxedos and gowns; many of these evening events are, in fact, a perfect opportunity for Munich residents to put on their best Trachten, showing off their lederhosen and dirndls in less earthy surroundings than at the Oktoberfest. The gentlemen will often combine a pair of smarter black, shiny leather breeches with a crisp white shirt and perhaps even a bow-tie, while the ladies wear dirndls of a finer, more expensive nature.

One annual event – held this year on Saturday 30^th January, is Löwenbräukeller’s “München Schabernackt” event, for which the motto is the encouraging “Come however you like, but just make sure you’re wearing something.” One rumour about this particular, ahem, “ball” is that they have a stock of g-strings and thongs to lend to those who ignore even this minimal dress-code requirement… For those looking for a little inspiration, the event managers recommend this website: Styleplanet…

All of this doesn’t, however, mean that everything is over before it gets started. There is still plenty going on in Munich over the weekend leading up to Shrove Tuesday – the typical time for Carnival celebrations elsewhere to begin. Even if the actual procession, held on Monday in Cologne, Düsseldorf et al, is also held beforehand, the weekend prior to Lent (i.e. this coming weekend, 6^th & 7^th, in 2016) still sees a large chunk of the pedestrian city centre closed off with they typically German proliferation of sausage stands, donut bakers, and beer vans.

In fact, those looking for the most genuinely Munich part of Carnival celebrations must hold on until Shrove Tuesday itself, when the rest of Germany is winding down from the Monday procession. In Munich, the start of Lent is marked by the “dance of the market ladies” at Viktualienmarkt, a once more-or-less spontaneous tradition that has how become the official centrepiece of festivities. And so Munich’s Fasching fans flock to the Viktualienmarkt Square in their thousands on the Tuesday for entertainment and – what else? – beer.

On that note: it’s worth remembering that this is by no means a long, drunken goodbye to beer during the Lenten period (in which it is traditional to fast), as Munich follows up on Fasching with the Strong Beer Festival but a few short weeks later… Prost!