"O'zapft is!" - Traditional Opening of Oktoberfest
Last Saturday, September 21st, marked the first day of the 2019 Oktoberfest in Munich, Germany. In honor of this historic and exciting volksfest, this week on the Main Entrance FastCast we’ll be looking at attractions and designs from Deutschland. So, grab your morning strudel, and let’s have a quick look at how location-based entertainment can actually be a way to honor and embrace a people or culture.
Cultural festivals, what the Germans would call Volksfests, are social gatherings that celebrate traditional folk crafts and folk music. In many places and events this often includes cultural foods and beverages, commonly of the alcoholic variety. Now, in the time we have, we definitely can’t go over all of them, so let’s take a quick look at a handful of these volksfeste around Germany, and what they have to offer. With our quote today, it’d be easy to start with the famous Oktoberfest in Munich, but hang tight, we’ll be revisiting the Theresienwiese later on this week.
Let’s start in the city of Hamburg, home to the Hamburger Dom. The Dom, named for the former city cathedral, is actually the biggest public festival in Northern Germany, and unlike Oktoberfest, it’s held three times a year, in the Spring, Fall, and Winter. The name of this festival comes from the use of the old Hamburg cathedral as a winter shelter for merchants, artisans and entertainers. At the beginning of the 19th Century the old cathedral was demolished, sending these folks around the city until they found a new home in the Heiligengeistfeld area. Like Oktoberfest, the stars of the Dom are the food, crafts, and the rides! Here you can enjoy sauerkraut, currywurst, and the famous Schmalzkuchen, fried pastry made from yeast dough and topped with sugar.
Next, let’s head over to Stuttgart, the home of the Cannstatter Volksfest, also known as the Stuttgart Beer Festival. Spanning three weekends from the end of September to early October, this festival originally began in 1817 due to a very poor harvest caused by a volcanic eruption a world away. Thanks to help from the Russian Czar, many people in Germany were saved from starvation, and in recognition of this, the festival was created to celebrate the harvest. Over time, this even evolved from an agricultural festival into a celebration of the people. As a symbol of the harvest and thanksgiving, an enormous 23 meter tall pillar was constructed, which is decorated, fittingly, with fruit.
Finally, let's head deeper into winter and talk about a famous event in Germany that has been transplanted across the globe, the Christkindlmarkt or Christmas Market. These are street markets built to celebrate the Christmas holiday in Germany, Switzerland, and Austria. While these festivals are quite prolific in the region, the markets in Dortmund and Cologne see attendance in the millions! Among the wonderful sights, sounds, smells, and tastes of these markets are the Nussknacker, or nutcrackers, traditional Christmas cookies called Lebkuchen, and, my personal favorite, Gluhwein, a hot mulled wine to keep you warm on chilly winter nights. These festivals are certainly purveyors of good cheer, as well as preserving the traditions and cultures of their respective hometowns. Nowadays, it’s not uncommon to see Christkindlmarkts in the United States, United Kingdom, and Scandinavia. There’s even a small version built annually at Epcot at Walt Disney World.
Volksfeste can be an incredible way to fully immerse yourself in traditional German culture. We barely scratched the surface of events that you can find around Germany, so if you plan to head to Deutschland, make sure to grab a travel guide or hop on Google and see to it that you hit at least one of these wonderful get-togethers!
