Tom's Tours

17/10/2024

Autumn has arrived.

07/10/2024

Heidesheim and its Harvest Festival

For the first time in 12 years, I've skipped the last weekend of Oktoberfest to visit my wife's village in Heidesheim am Rhein for Erntedankfest (Thanksgiving)

Celebrating the harvest is one of the oldest traditions in Europe. For a farmer, it was the cumulation of a years hard work, and it marks the start of the colder months. Normally, the whole community would be involved in bringing in the harvest, and there would be a large communal celebration. Often involving music and (of course) booze.

Today, the Heidesheim am Rhein has the largest Erntedanke festivals in the region, and it's the highlight in the local calendar. The houses in the village are decorated with seasonal veg, carved pumpkins, and the village's flag. A thanksgiving service is held in the local Catholic church before families gather to have lunch together and then assemble to watch the large parade.

In the parade is a mix of local groups and businesses. Schools also march , and so do the newly elected Harvest Queen and Princesses. A particularly nice touch is that delegates from Heidesheims twinned French village also come down to enjoy the fun.

After the parade, everyone goes to the village centre to mingle at the street market and to indulge in the local wines. (The Wasam white wine is particularly good)

It's nice to see that beyond the huge festivals like Oktoberfest, smaller village traditions are still going strong in Germany.

thanksgiving

10/09/2024

The Poor Poet by Carl Spitzweg is one of the most famous paintings on display in Munich’s Neue Pinakothek. The painting shows a poet in his garret, (back then the cheapest room in any block of flats) it’s winter and the snow outside is visible from his window. Yet the stove has no fuel unless he burns his own work. Wrapped up in bed to keep warm he works tirelessly on his latest poem surrounded by his books and underneath a leaking roof. It’s a painting that combines tragedy and humour and remains Spitzweg’s most famous work. The inspiration for the work was a real life poet from Munich called Mathias Etenhueber.

Born in Munich in 1720, a child prodigy who showed real poetic talent, first in Latin then in the German language. Over time his fame grew at home and abroad, so much so that the Empress Maria Threasa later personally awarded him a medal for his poetry. At home in Munich Elector Maximilian III made him the official court poet. However this position was honorary and didn’t come with any money. So to make ends meet in 1759 he began writing a weekly newspaper, the ‘Münchnerisches Wochblatter’ entirely in verse. This remarkable effort would be his main source of income for the rest of his life. Besides this he kept up a steady stream of poetic peicies, sometimes paid for sometimes voluntary, of baptisms, funerals, weddings and notable local and international events. Despite this he finances grew more and more perilous until he was living in total poverty.

In 1778 he wrote a critical piece about the government of Bavaria and was promptly arrested by the increasingly draconian authorities. After his arrest he emerged a broken man, no longer his cheerful self he quickly deteriorated and spent his final days being cared for by the Brothers of Mercy of St John and died aged 62.

27/08/2024

Berchtesgadenland

Today, it's most known as being the location lf Hi**er's mountain retreat the Berghof, but the regions history has more to offer than just Hi**er.

Berchtesgadenland was originally part of the early middle age Duchy of Bavaria. It's the most prominate town today. Berchtesgaden (the town) was first mentioned in the document in the 1101/2, and it was here that a local noble family donated land and built an Augustinian monestary. Over the years, the monestary grew to become not just the dominant spiritual but also secular power in the region until by 1559 Berchtesgadenland was elevated to a prince-provosthip, effectively making the leader of the monastary an Imperial Prince in the Holy Roman Empire. Much of this power was boosted by the rich salt deposits in the region. Opened in 1517, the mines are still in use, and the wealth of this 'White Gold' was been coverted by its larger neighbours Salzburg and Bavaria with countless fights, battles taking place over this lucrative trade. Berchtesgadenland would remain independent until 1803 when it and many other smaller states in the Empire were swallowed up by the larger ones. Eventually, it became part of Bavaria in 1810.

Since then, it became a favourite hunting area for the Bavarian monarchy, and due to its seemingly 'unspoilt' nature, tourism began to grow and become an important local industry. It was because of this that Adolf Hi**er visited a village called Obersalzberg in 1923 and was so impressed with the region that first he rented a small house then built his infamous mountain retreat the Berghof (Mountain Court). Often referred to as his summer house, the Berghof actually became an informal seat of government where Hi**er would go to find inspiration for his genocidal schemes. A huge complex was built around the Berghof, displacing the locals, to supply Hi**er with whatever he desired.

Today, visitors from all over the world flock to Berchtesgadenland to visit the ghosts of the N***s or to explore the beautiful alpine scenery. Personally it's my favourite part of the alps and well worth a visit.

27/08/2024

Berchtesgaden

Known for its incredible alpine scenery, love of tradition and being the favourite home of Adolf Hi**er Berchtesgaden has a lot to offer any visitor.

Surrounded on three sides but virtually impassible mountains, Berchtesgadenland is only accessible from the north, effectively making it one of the most remote places in Germany. Today, it's most known as being the location lf Hi**er's mountain retreat the Berghof, but the regions history has more to offer than just Hi**er.

Berchtesgadenland was originally part of the early middle age Duchy of Bavaria. It's the most prominate town today. Berchtesgaden was first mentioned in the document in the 1101/2, and it was here that a local noble family donated land and built an Augustinian monestary. Over the years, the monestary grew to become not just the dominant spiritual but also secular power in the region until by 1559 Berchtesgadenland was elevated to a prince-provosthip, effectively making the leader of the monastary an Imperial Prince in the Holy Roman Empire. It would remain this way until its independence came to an end in 1803, later becoming part of Bavaria in 1810.

Economically, it has been the huge salt deposits under Berchtesgaden that have been the main money maker for the region. Opened in 1517 the mines are still in use and the wealth of this 'White Gold' had been coverted

03/06/2024

Kafka in Munich

Today marks 100 years since Franz Kafka died of laryngel tuberculosis at the age of 40. Reletivly unknown when he died, Kafka has gone on to become one of the giants of 20th century literature.

Although mostly associated with his hometown of Prauge Kafa did visit Munich four times in his life and on the 10th November 1916 he gave his only public reading outside of Prauge in the Goltz Bookstore in Munich's bohemian district of Schwabing.

By then, his most famous work, 'The Metamorphosis,' had been published, but he had yet to achieve anywhere near the fame or recognition that he would enjoy posthumously, yet it's fair to say the room was filled with fans or at least people expecting to hear from an exciting new literary talent.

It did not go well

Kafka read his yet unpublished work 'In the penal Colony' and according to an eyewitness account,

'Something fell with a thud in the hall, an unconscious woman was carried out. Meanwhile, the story continued. Two more people were laid low by his words. The rows of listeners began to thin. Some of them fled at the last moment before the authors vision overcame them. Never have I witnessed a comparable effect from spoken words.'

Needless to say, this review was pure fiction, but it was hardly a successful reading and was received poorly in the local press. Despite this setback, however, Kafka continued to write, and some of his work darkly predicted the worst excesses of the 20th century, much of which began in Munich.

If you've never read Kafka, give it a go. I was surprised by how much I enjoyed his books when I first read them.

23/04/2024

The 1516 Bavarian Reinheitsgebot/beer purity law

Arguably, the most famous (but not the first) beer brewing regulation in the world, the Reinheitsgebot effect on Bavarian beer culture can not be overstated.

Today, it is most famous for restricting the ingredients brewers could use to bre beer to just three: water, hops, and barely. (Yeast was unknown then). The logic behind this was that at the time, brewers often experimented with all sorts of ingredients in the hope of finding a mircle herb, mineral or even a gall bladder that would improve the flavour of the beer and/or act as a preservative. Needless to say, the results were virtually undrinkable, so the law guaranteed a basic quality of beer in terms of taste. This was especially important in the days when beer was also a vital addition to the diet. In Europe, until the late 1800s, famine was almost guaranteed to strike sooner or later, and beer provided vital calories and nutriants. Bread, of course, was the food staple of the day and with the Reinheitsgebot restricting beer making only to barley wheat and rye was reserved for baking.

Perhaps surprisingly, most of the Reinheitsgebot deals with how much beer cost. Since beer was important to public health, the dukes were determined to keep the price low so all his subjects could afford it.

Politically, the Reinheitsgebot marks an important moment in Bavarian history as well. Since 1349, Bavaria had been partitioned between members of the ducal family Wittelsbachs. So Bavaria didn't have just one duke, but two (there had been four at one point) and a law passed in Munich, such as a beer purity law in 1487, could be ignored in its rival city Landshut. In 1506, Bavaria was unified as a solid whole meaning for the first time in over 150 years a single Bavarian duke was able to enforce his laws across Bavaria.

Today, the Reinheitsgebot is seen as a blessing to many but also a curse in a way it has stalled the local craftbeer.

If you want to learn more, please come on one of our history of beer tours.

17/04/2024

The Hopfenkrone/Hop Crown

This ornate symbol hanging outside the Sparten am Opfer beerhall on Max Jospeh platz is the last public reminder of an old problem that gripped the city every summer: a lack of beer.

Very simply, a brewer brewing beer will mix his malt grain in with water before straining it and boiling the liquid with hops before it's left to ferment. Traditionally, of course, this was done over a fire, and keeping a constant temperature would have been a challenge. Too hot, overboiled, or undercooked brewing could have meant spoiling the beer, resulting in an unpleasant flavour.

To try to guarantee a better quality of beer, Munich city banned brewing between St George's Day (24th April) and St Michael's (29th September). The logic was that it was easier for brewers to control the temperature in the cooler winter months.

So unable to brew in summer brewers in Munich made a new beer in March called Märzenbier (Mach beer). Highly hopped and stronger than regular beer to make it last longer, this special beer was what thirsty locals drank in the warm days of summer.

Due to limitations in stock and to ensure that all the local brewers shared in the profits, it was decided by the brewers themselves that only two breweries at a time in the city would be open at a time. One was in the north of the city in the Frauenkiche's parish and the other in the south in St. Peter's parish. A lottery would choose the lucky brewery and a green wreath or Hopfenkrone hanging outside the door would symbolise that it was open for business. After a set number of days, normally five, the breweries would close their doors, and the next two would open.

If you want to learn more about this and about Munich's beer history, please come on our beer tour.

08/03/2024

Maximilian von Montgelas, the father of Bavaria

Born in 1759 to a cosmopolitan noble family in Munich, young Maximilian rose quickly in the civil service until he was exiled from Bavria due to his links to the Illuminati (Yes, they existed. No, they don't secretly control the world).

Due to excellent connections, he became the private secretary to the duke of Zweibrücken Max Jospeh, who in 1799 later became the new Elector of Bavaria. Bavaria, at this point, was a state. If not in decay, it was mouldering around the edges with a huge state debt of 30 million guilders. It was in desperate need of reform if it were to survive this new revolutionary age.

Montgelas leapt to the task with inhuman energy. Using France as a model, he centralised and streamlined government, created a professional civil service, standardised weights, measures as well as introduced mandatory schooling to help Bavaria's woeful literacy rates (50%).

A man of the enlightenment, he had little time for the church and since the various churches and monestaries in Bavaria owned half the land, he seized nearly all church property in the state to sell and spent the profits on more of his reforms.

In foreign policy, he and Max Jospeh both were ardent supporters of Napoloen and followed the Emperor until 1813 until they swapped sides. (Napoleon vowed to burn Munich in revenge of this betrayal).

Montgelas's efforts cumulated in Bavaria's 1808 constitution. Remarkably liberal for its time, it granted religious freedoms, protection of the law, and representative governmental bodies. Although Montgelas dragged his feet on the last promise and and it wasn't until 1818 that Bavaria opened its first parliament.

Montgelas himself had already been sacked by then. A series of scandals and blunders had weakened his position, and his great enemy, Crown Prince Ludwig, persuaded his father to sack him in 1817. Montgelas lived until 1838, a diminished and controversial figure in his time, but today is seen as the father of the modern Bavarian state.

Come on our royal history tour to learn more.

30/01/2024

On this day in 1867, Ludwig II and his fiancée Sophie Charlotte Wittelsbach posed for their official engagement photograph. To the people of Bavaria, they must have seemed a handsome young couple. Beneath the surface, however, Ludwig and Sophie were facing real problems.

Old childhood friends and cousins with a shared passion for Wagner. Ludwig was undoubtedly fond of Sophie but didn't love her. He had only asked for her hand in marriage, as he later explained:

'Sophie who was in love with me was infinitely sad when she learned that I do not feel the same way. Moved by her unhappy state and feeling genuine sympathy for her, I allowed myself to be lured into the ill-considered step of being engaged.'

Then there was his homosexuality, probably latent at this stage of his life but enough to make him realise something didn't feel right, plus his distant personality meant he would never let Sophie truly close to him. The beautiful and engaging young woman must have quickly realised something was wrong as Ludwig often switched from caring but distant to indifferent during their engagement.

Ultimately, Ludwig would postpone his wedding twice before calling the who thing off after her understandably angry father demanded a definite date. While Ludwig does deserve some criticism for stringing Sophie along, he also deserves praise for cancelling the wedding. Especially considering the enormous pressure he was under to get married and ultimately saved two people from a loveless marriage.

17/01/2024

The 1749 clothing restrictions in Munich.

Clothes have always been used as an expression of wealth and status throughout human history. The cut of a jacket, the style of a shoe, even something as basic as a simpe colour, can mean all the difference between an emperor and a count, or a knight and a trademan.

Nobility, therefore, especially in the strictly hierarchical 1700s, always had a vested interest in setting rules of fasion by a combination of social pressure and legal restrictions to stop the more ambitious of the hoi polloi dressing like their betters. The clergy, too, were keen to damn fashion as prideful and a path to hell.

Therefore, to combat sinful shopkeepers and maids dressing like their betters, the Bavarian elector Max III Joseph passed a law on the 29th December 1749 clearly detailing who could wear what. Craftsmen and servants were banned and if caught fined from wearing swords (the most obvious sign of a gentleman). On new years day Munich women had their fashionable colourful bonnets ripped of their heads by the authorities. A brewer had his silk stokings removed and butchers had decoration on their hats removed while others had patches on their jackers ripped off.

Despite this the authorities were fighting a doomed battle, fashion could not and would not be controlled so easily and ironically within 100 years in the age of romanticism the Bavarian monarchy and nobility began to enthusiastically adopt the dress of peasents in the form of lederhosen.

11/12/2023

Krampus in Munich

Yesterday was the Krampus parade in the city of Munich. It's one of my favourite Christmas traditions in Bavaria and every year I go to watch it.

In Bavaria and the eastern alpine region, the Krampus is the helper of St Nicholas. While the saint delivers toys and sweets for the good children, the Krampus punishes the bad. Punishments range from a whipping to being taken away in a sack to be eaten (there are different versions).

The origins of the Krampus are relatively obscure, but most agree, it has roots in a pre-Christian tradition. As a horned creature there are parallels with a European wide tradition of horned deitys such as the the Celtic god Cernunnos , the Greek Styr Pan and a dipiction of a horned god on the Gundestrup Cauldron in Denmark. It's probable that the Krampus is a local variation on this common theme. Today's Krampus, though, is more of a Christian perspective of a Pagan god.

A comman symbol is his birch rods. Used to beat the naughty children, birch is traditionally seen as a purifying tool against the sinful, which also has possible pagan links. Another feature of the Krampus is that he wears chains and/bells. This is a symbol of paganism being defeated by Christianity and explains why he plays second fiddle to Nicholas. This symbolic reminder of the triumph of Christ over the devil is probably what allowed the Krampus tradition to survive in a christian region.

Yet despite this, something of the old spirit of pagan anarchy survived in the modern Krampus. The celebration of the Winter Solstice has always been a time for cheeky fun. The Romans used to celebrate their winter festival Saturnalia by letting the masters serve the slaves and later Christian's elected a Lord of Misrule for the 12 days of Christmas. In this tradition, with the Krampus marching loudly causing a huge racket through town to tease the crowds, we celebrate a tradition that reaches back across the centuries.

Finally, although he is often dipicted as evil or cruel but to be fair, the Krampus only goes after the bad, never the good.

25/11/2023

09/11/2023

On the 7th November, a 17 year old Jew called Herschal Grynszpan shot Ernst von Rath a minor official in the German embassy in Paris. Grynszpan's family was one of the thousands of Polish jews recently expelled from Germany by the N***s, triggering a huge refugee crisis and causing an angry boy to lash out with tragic consequences.

Hi**er had been informed of von Rath's shooting immediately, but he waited until the man had died on the 9th November to use his death as a pretext to attack the Jewish community in Germany.

Around 10 o clock in the evening, Dr Goebbels gave a speech in Munich's old town hall to the party elite, claiming the state would not intervene if 'spontaneous' actions against the Jews took place.

In reality, the 'spontaneous' uprisings were all organised by the N**i party Gangs of brownshirts and other thugs let loose onto German streets knwoing they could literally get away with murder. Synagoges were burnt, and Torah's defiled. Home's were invaded, shops destroyed, and lives ruined.

The 18 year old Rudi Bamber from Nuremburg remembered, 'I went upstairs and found my father dying, dead... I was absolutely in shock.' This story was repeated thousands of times across Germany that night.