If you’ve enjoyed tasting wine, drinking beer, and filling up on wurst to the lively tunes of a lederhosened band during an Oktoberfest, give a tip of your feathered Alpine hat to Munich. Then book a reservation for the real thing, and head for Upper Bavaria (German: Oberbayern) and the vacation of a lifetime!
Have you ever visited any of the Walt Disney Worlds around the globe, and marched through the Cinderella Castle into Fantasyland? The book a vacation to Upper Bavaria and follow King Ludwig Way from Munich to Neuschwanstein Castle, Ludwig II’s fantasy castle in the clouds.
If your idea of Germany is based on picture postcards showing mountain meadows with yodeling goatherds and milkmaids in dirndl skirts, or villages where vividly painted houses sport window boxes of rioting geraniums, come to Upper Bavaria. Whatever it takes, come to Oberbayern! (Did you hear me now? ;-)
Where else can you see the legendary Wolperdinger, the winged, horned, tusked, web-footed mammal which in stuffed form watches over the diners in so many Upper Bavarian restaurants? Where but in Munich can you watch a group of charming copper enamel figured reenact the great moments in Bavarian history except at the Glockenspiel?
Where else except in the Upper Bavarian town of Oberammergau can you see the world-famous Passion Play, which has been held every ten years since 1640 in thanksgiving because the plague bypassed the town in that year. Where else except in Oberbayern can you ride a cable car to the summit of the nearly 3,000-meter or 10,000-foot Zugspitze, Germany’s highest peak?
Only in Upper Bavaria will you be able to stand on the peaks of Berchtesgaden, seeing a view made eerily familiar in Adolf Hitler‘s home movies. Create some video memories of your own with shots of hang gliders soaring above the Königssee, or of a delightful Almatrieb, when you’ll witness cattle garbed in brilliantly colored headgear being driven from their mountain pastures.
Where but in Oberbayern can you find the latest technological advances in automotive design, from the BMW headquarters in Munich to the Audi factory in Ingolstadt? Where can you stroll along the banks of the Isar river, stopping in a colorful and lively beer garden to enjoy a Radler (beer diluted with lemonade) while snacking on a “fish on a stick?” Steckerlfisch, an entire mackerel skewered, broiled, and wrapped in paper, and grilled before being consumed whole, is a specialty of Upper Bavaria’s Bad Tölz region.
Where except here can you witness the world’s premier jousting event, the Kaltenberger Knight’s Tournament at the 13th century Kaltenberg Castle west of Munich? Experience for yourself a day at a 1498 Medieval Fair! Or let your time machine take you even further back, to the days of the Romans, with a visit to the restored Pfunz fortress, Vetoniana.
Where can you trace the footsteps of Mozart through the Berchtesgadener Land and the Chiemgau except by following the 280-mile Mozart Cycle Path? Stop along the way at several of his favorite haunts, including the Seeon Abbey in Traunstein, where he loved to stop during his travels and work on his musical compositions.
Finally, where else but in Upper Bavaria will you find the most famous beer hall in the world, Munich’s Hofbräuhaus? Munich’s residents consume and average of 350 (!) liters of beer each year, which would be about a liter every single day. Coincidentally (or maybe not!), the Hofbräuhaus serves beer only in one-liter mugs!
Join the band in singing “In München steht ein Hofbräuhaus” and raise a glass to your good fortune at taking a vacation in the only place where you can do all these things, and so very many more. :-)
