Lederhosen, Dirndls, and a Crooked Hotel: A Trip to Ulm and the Munich Oktoberfest

On Friday, we all drove to Munich together. Parking in the city center is expensive, so like most visitors we left the car at a Park & Ride outside the city and took the metro in — a day of parking cost us only about €1.50, which felt almost too easy for a day this busy. The festival grounds, known locally as the Wiesn, were packed from the moment we arrived; organizers were reporting attendance in the millions, and it showed.

Getting a seat inside a tent without a reservation turned out to be possible but not guaranteed — tents hold back a share of their tables for walk-ins, but with a group of around ten people or more, reserving ahead is clearly the safer bet. A one-liter mug cost about €15, and once inside, drinking is tent-only — taking a Maß outside the tent isn't allowed. We also learned, a little later than we'd have liked, that the tents pour more than just beer; we'd assumed it was beer only, but there were other drinks on offer too.

Later that day we spent some time walking around the city center. Marienplatz, with the Neues Rathaus and its Gothic clock tower, is the obvious heart of Munich, and it's easy to see why — the square was full of life well into the evening.

A short walk away is the Bavarian State Chancellery, a striking mix of old and new — a domed building from 1905, once the Bavarian Army Museum, now framed by two curved modern glass wings. It sits right at the edge of the Hofgarten, the royal court garden laid out in the early 1600s.

Just around the corner, at Max-Joseph-Platz, the Nationaltheater — home of the Bavarian State Opera — makes its own statement with a row of towering Corinthian columns. Between the two buildings and the garden in between, it's a genuinely pleasant part of the city to wander through, even without a destination in mind.

Before heading back to Ulm, we found a Persian restaurant, Hafez, in the city center, and it turned out to be a great call after a long day on our feet. We ordered a few classics — Joje Bakhtiari, Mahicheh (slow-cooked lamb shank), and Soltani — and the prices were fair for what we got. If you're not Iranian and ever get the chance, I'd genuinely recommend trying these dishes; they're some of the best of what Persian cooking has to offer.

Right beside the water stands the Hotel Schiefes Haus — the "Crooked House" — a half-timbered building in the Fischerviertel (the old fishermen's quarter) that dates back to the early 1400s and leans noticeably toward the river. According to the Guinness Book of Records, it's the most crooked hotel in the world, and it's still a working hotel today, even though we were staying with friends rather than there ourselves.

From there we walked to Ulm Minster, and it's hard to overstate how much the place rewards a closer look — the detail in the stonework alone is worth the stop. At 161.5 meters, its spire is the tallest of any church on earth, a title it's held for well over a century, and one it's expected to keep only until Barcelona's Sagrada Família is eventually finished.

Walking in, the sheer height of the nave changes how you stand — everyone instinctively looks up. The vaulting, the columns, the stained glass: it's the kind of architecture that was clearly built to make you feel small on purpose.

One detail I didn't expect to find inside: a large painted wooden panel, dated 1561, covered in small shields and family names — a memorial from the Besserer chapel, honoring generations of the Besserer family, one of Ulm's old patrician families who shaped the city for centuries. Reading through the names, it's a small reminder of how much history a single building like this can quietly hold onto.