And did
you know….
OKTOBERFEST
Social
barriers dissolve, strangers become friends and everybody sings too loudly,
drinks in excess and has waaaaay too much fun at the world’s biggest beer
bash that takes over Munich for 16 wild and wacky days starting in late
September. More than 6.2 million people guzzled 6.7 million liters of beer
during Oktoberfest 2007 and the party employs about 12,000 people with its
own police force, lost and found office, childcare center, fire brigade,
baggage checkroom, post office and first aid station. (p.108-109)
POPE
MANIA
Get into
the spirit in Pope Benedict XVI’s home town, Marktl am Inn where you can
tour his birth house, touch his baptismal font, bone up on his biography and
stock up on Papst Bier labelled with His Beaming Holiness. (p. 209)
MONASTIC BREWS
In a
land where beer is darn near a religious experience, it’s no surprise that
some of the best hoppy juices are made by monks. Try them for yourself at
Kloster Weltenburg and Kloster Andechs (p.129, 203)
SCHLOSS NEUSCHWANSTEIN
King
Ludwig II envisaged his dream palace as a giant stage that would allow him
to live out the Germanic mythology immortalized in the operas of his idol,
Richard Wagner. To that end a theatre designer, rather than an architect
laid out the initial blueprint. It served as the inspiration for
Cinderella’s castle at Disney World. (p. 283)
SCHLOSS LINDERHOF
Ludwig
II’s most irresistibly charming whimsy, this castle’s dining room reflects
the king’s passion for newfangled gadgets: its central fixture is a ‘magic
table’ that sinks through the floor to the kitchen. No need to see the
servants. (p. 143)
OINK
Bavarians like to ‘pig out’ and the numbers prove it: of the 130lbs of meat
consumed by the average resident each year, about two-thirds are pork.
(p.44)
BOTTOMS UP
In
Bavaria, beer is officially defined not as alcohol but as a staple food,
just like bread. (p. 45)
THE
WATZMANN LEGEND
A myth
recounts how a barbaric king named Watzmann once ruled Berchtesgadener Land
together with his wife and seven children. He loved nothing more than to
terrorize his subjects and torture his animals. One day they came across a
humble farm where an old lady sat with her grandchild. After trampling them
with his horses and setting his hunting dogs upon them, the dying
grandmother put a curse upon the king and his family. Immediately the earth
swallowed up Watzmann, his wife and seven children; they’re now immortalized
in the rocks that reign above Konigssee. (p.72)
FOOLING THE DEVIL
Churches
come with legends, and the Frauenkirche has a particularly good one. In the
foyer, there is a hoofed footprint in the floor. When construction was
finished, the devil came by to check it out, stopped in this very spot and
started cracking up because the builder had apparently forgotten to put in
any windows! He stomped his foot in triumph but he didn’t have the last
laugh. A few more steps and…ooops, plenty of windows after all. (p. 90)
A
TOTALLY AWESOME WAVE, DUDE
Munich
is famous for beer, sausages and surfing. Yep, you read that right. Just go
to the southern tip of the English Garden at Prinzregentenstrasse and you’ll
see scores of people leaning over the bridge to cheer on wetsuit-clad
daredevils as they ‘hang 10’ on an artificially created wave in Eisbach.
It’s only a single wave, but it’s a fine one. (p.105)
LUFTLMALEREI
Throughout the Bavarian Alps you’ll come across timeworn houses with facades
swathed in frescoes in a style called Luftlmalerei. It’s a type of trompe
l’oeil painting that became popular in the 18th century to show
off the region’s increasing wealth. Images usually have a localized,
religious flavor (the disciples in local garb, Mary in a dirndl), but some
also illustrate the profession of the house owner or depict decidedly
secular beer-hall scenes. (p. 142)
ROCK
ME AMADEUS
Aged
two, Mozart identified a pig’s squeal as G sharp. He gave his first public
recital aged five.
Aged 23
he fell in love with the soprano Aloysia Weber. When she rebuffed him, he
promptly married her sister.
When not
composing, he enjoyed billiards, heavy drinking sessions and teaching his
pet starling to sing operettas.
A boy
once asked Mozart how to write a symphony. He replied that a symphony was
too difficult at such a young age. “You wrote symphonies at my age!”
exclaimed the boy. ‘But I didn’t have to ask how’, replied Mozart.
Modern
psychologists believe that Mozart suffered from Tourette’s Syndrome, a
disorder leading to uncontrolled outbursts of swearing and obscene behavior.
(p. 174)
