Germany was a popular port of call for us on our European tour going in around four times over the 6 months. Our first taste of Germany was in Munich at Oktoberfest in late September, where we spent three nights camping in torrential rain while spending two days inside the beer tents. We signed up to an Aussie/kiwi company that sets up your tent and provides transport to and from the festival, the company was great and the liver got a decent workout. The tents were less than ideal for some who weren’t familiar with camping in the rain and found themselves waking in pools of water, luckily we spent the time to put a few extra pegs in to stay dry. We met Angela who went to University with Pete and quickly got to know her partner and friends who we partied with on the second day, we later all met back up for New Years in Amsterdam. We had a blast at Oktoberfest but definitely something I personally don’t need to repeat, there was a lot of Stein drinking but the dancing and singing of the German festival songs will stick with us. After a rainy wet weekend we took the first plane out of Munich to Milan, Italy.

The second time we entered Germany was when we were in Salzburg, Austria and jumped on the local bus across the border into Bavaria. Here we spent a few days in Berchtesgaden enjoying the many hiking trails, the weather was so nice and warm during the day and we did some really picturesque hikes. One evening we went into the town centre for the famous Christmas markets when we were introduced to the Krampus. Krampus is a horned, folklore figure described as "half-goat, half-demon”, who, during the Christmas season, punishes children who have misbehaved, in contrast with Saint Nicholas, who rewards the well-behaved with gifts. It is basically any male older than 16 who is unmarried dresses up as the Krampus and terrorises the town, it’s like being whipped with a wet tea towel, very painful and the young lads were not holding back, as we found out the hard way. From Berchtesgaden we headed back into Austria before making our way to Innsbruck.

On entry number three into Germany we were heading from Switzerland to Amsterdam and took an overnight stop off in the city of Cologne. After a broken down train in Switzerland we had a late arrival into Cologne that evening but it didn’t stop us heading out to check out the famous Kolsch beer scene by dropping into many Bauhaus’.  The next morning we had a quick look at the huge gothic Cathedral and a quick walk along the Rhine river before jumping back on the train and making our way to Amsterdam.

Our final destination in Germany was Berlin, where we spent 5 nights exploring the city on the back of our camping trip through Iceland. We had a lot of snow and cold weather in Berlin but battled the chilly weather and went and saw all the main city sites including, the Berlin wall, East side galleries, holocaust memorial and check point Charlie, to name a few. We went to the Hofbrau brewery for a traditional Bavarian Pork knuckle, ending up with a three person meat platter which did us nicely. We spent one night on the Berlin pub crawl where we met a few others from around the world. Another evening we found ourselves at a craft beer festival in the suburbs with over 120 kegs with beers from all over the world, the boys were in heaven. Berlin was a pretty fun city and great place to pick up some international cuisine.