Now, this is a party!! The Hofbrau Zelt beer tent at the Cannstatter Volkfest in Stuttgart
September 29
We awoke to the sound of rain. Now, I should say that both Dianne and I enjoy the rain, especially after having endured another of the San Joaquin Valley’s notoriously hot, dry summers. But, rain can complicate things when one is traveling. And, since Kelly had promised to take us anywhere we wanted to go, we had to take the rain into account when selecting our destinations.
While Dianne was in the shower, I looked through some guidebooks to get some idea as to what to see. I thought about going to France, but decided that I was in Germany for a reason and that I should enjoy the country in which I was located instead of running off to somewhere else. Since we had plans to go north in a couple of days, and since we had just come from the south, it looked like our best option would be to go east. I started glancing through pages when I noticed that Stuttgart was holding their version of Oktoberfest called the Cannstatter Volksfest. I was still pining for one of the one-liter beers, so this sounded like a great place to visit. Having decided on Stuttgart, I then looked for other sites on the way that might be interesting to visit. I focused on two: Ludwigsburg, which housed a magnificent palace, or Maulbronn, which housed a medieval cloister. I was leaning toward Ludwigsburg until I read that the only way to see the palace’s interior was on a guided tour that left each hour. The only tour in English was held at 1 p.m., which meant that we would likely miss the palace’s tour and be left touring only the palace’s gardens. Since it’s no fun touring gardens in the rain, I decided that Maulbronn would be the place to go.
Kelly, Dianne, and I left for Maulbronn around 10:30 a.m. Kelly could’ve taken the M8 freeway; but, instead decided to explore some of the smaller roads through the Palatine Forest. It was a picturesque drive. However, it added about 40 minutes to our trip. So, what could’ve been an under two hour drive turned into a two and a half hour drive. Complicating the drive was the fact that Maulbronn was remote from any other attraction in the area (given Germany’s urbanization, it’s hard to imagine anything in the country being “remote”…but Maulbronn was). We were very glad that Kelly’s Volvo came with a GPS guidance system that put us directly on Maulbronn’s doorstep.
We spent about two hours touring Maulbronn. By the time we left, the rain had stopped. I was glad about this change in the weather, because I wanted didn’t want the rain to diminish my Cannstatter experience as it had my Oktoberfest experience. With the fear of rain gone, we drove into Stuttgart. Since we had some time to kill (and because I didn’t know where the Cannstatter grounds were), I offered that we should visit the Mercedes Benz Museum. Kelly and Dianne thought that was a great idea, especially because both of them are car fans. I figured we’d have plenty of time to see the museum and still visit the festival. But, Stuttgart’s traffic was so bad that we weren’t able to get to the museum until after it closed at 5 p.m. While we were disappointed that we didn’t see the museum, we did get a look at exterior of the new Mercedes museum being built just outside the plant. The sleek steel and glass design was something that one would associate with Mercedes. We were sure that the museum would be stunning once it was completed.
The only good thing about the traffic jams that led up to the Mercedes factory was that we got a good idea of where the Cannstatter grounds were located. It turned out they were only about a mile from the Mercedes factory. We drove up the street and found some “off-site” parking near the grounds. We parked the car and strolled into the festival. On the surface, the Cannstatter looked a lot like Oktoberfest. There were amusement rides, carnival attractions, food booths, and beer tents. But, the big difference was that there didn’t seem to be as many people as there were in Munich. Nowhere was this difference more pronounced than inside the beer tents. We decided to go inside the Dinkle Acker beer tent for dinner. Instead of the standing room only crowds that populated Munich’s beer tents, there was ample room inside of Stuttgart’s beer tents. We easily found a table and ordered our food. Once we got past finding the table, everything else was like Munich. The bands were playing, the servers were serving ample quantities of beer and food, the kitchens were filled with stacks of chickens roasting on a rotisserie, and everyone was having a good time. This was the Oktoberfest experience I hoped to enjoy. As I ate my pork chops and drank the one-liter beer that I was denied in Munich, I decided that if I were ever in Germany again, I would skip the overcrowded Oktoberfest and attend the equally good, but less-crowded, Cannstatter Volksfest.
After we finished eating, we visited a couple of other beer tents and toured the grounds to enjoy the festival’s atmosphere. With our tour complete, we headed back to the car (although I had to make a couple of stops to deal with the one-liter beer). Kelly drove us straight back to Ramstein.
It was a long day of touring, but it was very much worth it. Kelly again proved to be a great host with his willingness to drive us all over Germany. But, as is usually the case with a trip, one is always looking forward to the next day. And, our next day promised to be something special. Kelly was planning to take us to the Rhine River for a cruise.
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