Oct 6, 2014

Posted by in Bavaria, Dirndl and Lederhosen, Oktoberfest | Comments Off on What a Wiesn! Our review of the Oktoberfest 2014

What a Wiesn! Our review of the Oktoberfest 2014

What a Wiesn! Our review of the Oktoberfest 2014

What a wonderful Wiesn! After two weeks, what seemed impossible has finally come to pass: the Oktoberfest 2014 is over. We’ve left Munich and are back in Blighty – with one almighty hangover and one very clear resolution: to go back and do the same thing again next year.

Until that happens, here’s a few statistics to sum up the Oktoberfest 2014 in all its considerable glory.

150 – the number of times they had to shut the underground stop Theresienwiese due to overcrowding.
500 gigabytes – the amount of mobile data used per day by fest-goers.
3646 – the precise number of items of lost property handed in in 2014
115,000 – the cubic metres of water passing through the Wiesn piping
220,000 – the cubic metres of natural gas used in the tent kitchens to roast 112 oxen, 48 calves, and around half a million chickens
6.5 million – litres of beer served
6.3 million – number of visitors
36 – number of fights with tankards
112,000 – number of recorded attempts to steal tankards

By way of comparison, 2013 saw 6.7 litres of beer drink and 6.4 million visitors, so this was a slightly quieter Oktoberfest 2014. This might have something to do with the drop in glassings – if 36 seems high (and any incidence of violence is, of course, one too many), this stands against 59 in 2013. So this year was safer and more enjoyable in a statistical sense: we’ve personally never witnessed any serious violence – compared to a British high street, this is quite literally a kindergarten. At the same time, criminality is up if you consider nicking a tankard as a souvenir a crime (we don’t!).

What would be a crime, however, would be not share our impressions of this wonderful Wiesn 2014 with you. So here they are!

One day in the life of the Oktoberfest 2014

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Clowning at the entrance to the Theresienwiese. Nice dirndl and lederhosen there, guys…

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This is the new tent for 2014, the Marstall. Looked pretty posh – perhaps a bit too posh for us…

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A traditional tent on one side and candied fruit stand on the other. Beer and skittles, then!

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Or how about a delicious mackerel at the Fischer Vroni tent?

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But before we start drooling, let’s join the other tourists and get a snap of this beautiful beer waggon!

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Then we do what we do every year: head for Hofbräu!

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When the tent starts to get too packed and too drunk, we take a well-earned chicken break.

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And follow it up with a heart made of gingerbread. Hansel and Gretel say “hi!”.

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Then it’s time for a sunny, post-prandial stroll across the Theresienwiese.

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And then we climb up to the hill with the statue of Bavaria’s eponymous patron goddess.

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The sharp climb is rewarded with a stitch – and a fantastic panoramic view of the fairground.

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Which whets our appetite for a quick spin before we head off a lie-down..

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Only kidding! Then it’s back into the tents for the rest of the evening!

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