Bad Dürkheim's Wurstmarkt, September 17th

Sunday September 18

Another week has disappeared! Nothing too out of the ordinary occurred this week but we rest now on a gloomy afternoon after a fun weekend! I did really well with my borrowed walking sticks too. I have to find a place to get my own though because the ones I've been using are just a bit too tall for me so I will have to get a correct measurement so that they are doing what they are supposed to do for a good workout.


Friday night we went to The Alzenquella with Bonnie and Jeff because of a Zweibelkuchen (onion cake) and New Wine  special they were having. It was pretty good and we were in good company. It's very much a "locals" joint and we spent the night chatting and drinking with the locals. It was fun but what we though was just going to be dinner turned into a late night of wine, schnapps and brandy! Oh well, it was a good time.

Saturday we caught the 12:15 train to the worlds largest wine festival, Dürkheimer's Wurstmarkt in Bad Dürkheim. Literally meaning "sausage market" this fest is over 570 years old, draws in over 600,000 visitors every year, and is the main event of the year in the Palatinate. It was quite eventful just getting to the fest as it was a game day in Kaiserslautern - Fußball - Foosball, football, soccer, whatever may have you - and the trains were PACKED! We made it with all of the people and 5 minute transfer times but luckily none of the Bahnhof's in the little towns are that big.

Bad Dürkheim is a really pretty little spa town and its pretty amazing to see the town transformed into a huge festival. We arrived and hit the bathrooms for .50 which is pretty common everywhere we go! We walked into the fest and it appeared to be like the Iowa State Fair, especially after seeing food on sticks :). We ate lunch at the Dürkheimer Riesenfaß which is the worlds largest wine barrel with a capacity of 1.7 million liters, a bit bigger than the one in Heidleburg! We had a delish lunch, sampled our 1st wine (even though the picture looks like I'd had many more samples!).


Lunch at the WineFest 

Then time to walk the grounds and see what our 1st fest was all about. It was a beautiful day and the place was pretty busy, as we expected but we were pretty excited when we came upon the Schubkärchler (small traditional wine stands with scrubbed wooden tables worn smooth over the years where everyone sits elbow to elbow). We chose this setting because the "oompah" band or die mackenbacher, was roaming up and down the little streets there.   


One of the Schubkärchler



Bonnie singing with the oompah band

Dave and I drank the local fave, schorle, where about 2/3 of the large tumbler is filled with wine and then topped off with mineral water. Now granted if you go this route, you are stuck with a pretty big glass of one kind of wine. At the same time, it's less trips to the counter and longer to hang at the tables and chat :)



Dave & me with my goofy expressions - with our Schorle's.

Bonnie and Jeff chose smaller glasses of regular wine that they'd share. If you leave a tent you turn in your glass for the pfand, which is basically getting your money back and they were 2€ each! We walked around some more and found much much larger tents with bands and bigger tables and dancing.  We heard a lot of the traditional German songs and saw a lot of dirndl's and Lederhosen! 



Traditionaly dressed man!



Group of women in their dirndl's behind me!

 The big tents were a lot of fun and very similar to the Oktoberfest that we experienced in Sidney, NE!

It was probably a good thing that we had to catch an 8:30 train because we'd had enough of the big glasses in the 7 hours we were there. There were still gobs of people getting to the fest as well as gobs of people leaving and the trains were pretty packed again. Everyone was in pretty good spirits, especially coming from Bad Dürkheim but also the people coming back from the game because Kaiserslautern won against it's rival, Mainz. 

We had a good time but agreed that next year we book well in advance and get a hotel in the area for a night. The trains are great but with them being regional and a bit smaller they are pretty hectic from small town to small town for such a big event.  All in all it was another fun adventure, and now we have to prepare for the next big weekend....Munich's Oktoberfest!

Link to Bad Dürkheim pictures