Yesterday was the official opening ceremony of the 189th Oktoberfest with the mayor of Munich opening the first beer barrel at 12pm. It is always an important prediction of how many strokes he needs. The fewer strokes, the better a mayor he is. It shows that you have the priorities right, that you are a real Bavarian leader. Mayor Reiter only needed 2 strokes yesterday, showing that he is a good leader and will have another successful year reigning this 1.5 million city.

The inaugural Oktoberfest was first celebrated in Munich in 1810 in honor of Prince Ludwig’s marriage to Princess Therese von Sachsen-Hildburghausen. The festivities began October 12, 1810, and lasted nearly a week until October 17, ending with an exciting horse race.

A few years the festivities didn’t happen: wars, cholera outbreaks and the most recent Covid 19 made the Oktoberfest be cancelled.

https://www.oktoberfest.de/en/magazine/war-bombs-cholera-and-the-history-of-oktoberfest

The second day of the festival started with a big parade of folklore groups, marching bands, dance and – very importantly – the brewery horse carriages transporting the beer barrels to the fairgrounds. The parade is 7 km long with 1000 attendees. It’s spectacular, interesting, loud and amazing!

After the 3-hour spectacular parade we went to the Oktoberfest fairgrounds, „die Wiesn“ and had some fun right there: