Without a doubt, my favourite aspect about traveling is all the people you meet along the way.

Since I started traveling on a regular basis four years ago, I’ve met dozens of people, many of whom I consider to be close friends of mine. In fact, at last count I have friends in 27 countries on five different continents and many of them have offered me open invitations to visit them. I’ve have already taken a few of them up on their offer, and this past month I took advantage of that opportunity to visit Germany.

It all started with Oktoberfest. Oktoberfest has been on my bucket list for as long as I’ve had a list. But visiting Germany is not cheep. Even if you stay in hostels, you’re paying a pretty penny for accommodations. For example, when I checked to see how much a bed in a hostel would cost in Munich during Oktoberfest the cheapest place I could find was $200 a night, and no, that’s not a misprint. It was $200 for a bed in a dorm room.

Fortunately, during my first trip to Puerto Escondido in 2022, I met Jan, a young man from Munich who was in the process of taking over his family’s small hotel about an hour train ride from the city. He told me that if I visited there, he would give me a good room rate with the catch that I would have to wear lederhosen during my stay.

It was super nice of him and I kept his offer in the recesses of brain hoping to one day take him up on it.

The following year I met Sven, who is part of my Tomorrowland family, Sven lives near Hamburg and he also invited me to stay at his place, as did several other friends who live in the Freiburg area, situated near the borders of Switzerland and France.

So I already had several options on places to go and friends to stay with. However, It wasn’t until I met my friend Veronika in Mexico last winter, that I started making plans to actually check my Germany/Oktoberfest box off my bucket list.

Veronkia was from Berlin and offered to let me stay in her apartment while she moved in with her boyfriend for a few days.

So there it was, I had all the bases covered with places to stay in Hamburg, Berlin, Munich and Frieburg. And thanks to my wonderful Aeroplan card, I had the airfare covered too.

My first stop was Sven’s hometown of Luneburg, which is about 30 minutes south of Hamburg.

Little did I know that my first taste of Germany would be the local Oktoberfest party in Luneburg. It turned out to be quite a night during which I got to meet Sven’s girlfriend Franzi and some of his friends from work, including Marcus.

We started out drinking something called Korn mixed with Fanta during a pre-party at Sven’s place which included a meal of pig’s knuckle called Schweinshaxe with sauerkraut and various mixed sausages. After the pre-party we went to Oktoberfest where I got to sample several different beers, none of which I was able to remember the next morning.

The next day I ventured to Hamburg to do some sightseeing. I managed to visit all the major landmarks including the Speicherstadt warehouse district, the Maritime Museum, the Elbphilharmonie, St. Michaelis and the St. Nikolai Memorial. I even visited the infamous Reeperbahn, where I visited my friend Anna who I hadn’t seen since we first met in Greece in 2024.

My overall impression of Hamburg is that it reminded me of Rotterdam. Both cities wereextensively bombed during the Second World War, and both cities managed to rise from the ashes with incredible modern architecture and a visitor-friendly vibe.

From Hamburg, I took a train to Berlin where I visited all the usual sights including the Berlin Wall, the Brandenburg Gate, Check Point Charlie and the Topography of Terror which is a memorial center located on the former site of the Gestapo and SS headquarters during the war. The memorial is a long display wall with dozens of panels telling the history of the rise and fall of the Nazi Party and the Third Reich.

The most poignant aspect of the memorial explain,s in detail, how the Nazi Party and Adolph Hitler came to power, taking advantage of the economic instability and political corruption at the time while gaining the support of a majority of Germans.

The parallels between what happened then and what has been happening south of the border under Donald Trump is both startling and alarming.

While in Berlin my friend Viktoria gra-ciously let me stay in her apartment. We first met in Mexico last February and made an instant connection. Her boyfriend Daniel was also wonderfully gracious and I wouldn’t have made this trip without their generosity.

Viktoria is a member of the Die Linke party, which is very much like the NDP.

On my next to last day in Berlin the local municipal election was being held. It turned out to be an historical evening as the socialist Die Linke party went from just six per cent support in 2024 to 26 per cent support and won the mayor’s seat in the process for the first time since German reunification in 1990.

The after party was off the charts. The next day I had to bid a fond farewell to the city and took another train to Deisen Am Amarsee where my friend Jan has his hotel.

Deisen is situated on the west bank of the Lake Amarsee and it’s about a one hour train ride to Munich’s central station

The biggest reason I went to Munich was to go to Oktoberfest which this year ran from Sept. 19 to Oct. 4.

My hope was that one of my German friends would be able to go with me, but they all had other commitments.

I also had several friends who were in Munich around the same I was, but just not on the same dates. Taylor from California was there the day before I arrived, and another friend Mike Lanos, whose from Gloucester was arriving for Oktoberfest two days after I was scheduled to leave.

As fate would have it, the only friend who was in Munich at the same time was my friend Maria, who is also from Orléans, and was visiting with her husband Pierre. We weren’t able to go to Oktoberfest together but we did got to lunch together and got caught up on things after not seeing each in years.

Part of my deal for staying at Jan’s hotel was to wear a pair of lederhosen. I had thought about buying a pair on Amazon, but I never had the time to do so. As fate would have it, Jan took me to a small vintage clothing store near his hotel which had one, single pair of authentic leather lederhosen for sale and they turned out to be my size. The price was only 90 euros and shopkeeper threw in a shirt.

Now, normally a pair of authentic leather lederhosen can sell for 150 to 200 euros new, so I bought the darn things and was ready for my first taste of Oktoberfest in Munich, and let me tell you it surpassed all my expectations.

First of all, the festival is massive and combines 15 beer halls, many of them with seating capacity for more than 4,000 people, and a carnival with dozens of rides, attractions and midway games – plus the food is phenomenal.

I visited three of the bigger tents and met tons of new friends. Each tent had live music, which was also much better than expected, and of course beer, the brand of which depended on the tent you were in.

The downside of my time at Oktoberfest was that I heard “Sweet Caroline”, “Country Roads” and “YMCA” more times than any human being should ever be subjected to.

That said I think everyone should exper-ience Oktoberfest in Munich at least once in their lives. And if you do decide to go here are a few tips...

- Go during the week. It’s much less crowded during the week than on the weekend and its still the same vibe.

- Go early. The grounds open at 11 a.m. and if you go early you can check out a number of the tents before deciding where you want to have your first beer.

- Bring cash. Oktoberfest is a cash-based festival. Some of the food stalls and the souvenir stands accept credit cards, but none of the beer tents do. And bring 100-200 euros with you. You do not want to rely on the Oktoberfest ATM machines which charge mega exorbitant rates.

- Try the food. I recommend the pig knuckle, which is called Schweinshaxen, or the rotisserie chicken, which is called Wiesnhendl. You can’t go wrong either way.

After spending a few days in Munich, I took another train to Freiburg where I met my old friend Kamil, who gave me a quick tour of the city before heading off to Colmar, France, which is known as “Little Venice” due to its many canals. The town dates back to the middle ages and the centre still has many of the original medieval style houses and buildings that are over 1200 years old.

From Colmar, we drove to Basel in Switzerland, where I stayed with Kamil and his girlfriend Regina. During my stay there we visited a karaoke bar, went to a roof top party over looking the Rhine River which I floated down the next day.

Apparently floating down the Rhine is a popular summer tradition where locals and visitors drift along the fast-flowing current past the historic Old Town. It also happened to be 30 degrees that day.

From Basel I took a train back to Munich and then flew back to Canada.

All in all my trip to German was amazing, but it would not have been possible without the generosity of all my German friends who opened their homes to me. Thank you to Sven, Fanzi, Marcus, Veronika, Daniel, Jan, Kamil, Regina and Reany. Hopefully we’ll soon meet again somewhere down the road.

(If you wish to comment on this or any other View Point column please write to Fred Sherwin at fsherwin@orleansstar.ca)