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In July and August (2000), my husband, Roger, my son, Jason, and I embarked on a three-and-a-half week vacation in Europe. We had a wonderful time, and since attending two Bavarian Gaufeste was one of the main reasons we went on the trip, I thought you might enjoy reading about our experiences. pictures
On Saturday evening (July 29), we attended the Füssen Gaufest (festival), hosted by the Füssen Schuhplattler Verein. This Gaufest marked the one-hundred year anniversary of the OberLechgau, and so was an even larger celebration than the usual annual festival. The Saturday night event was formal, with many Schuhplattlers from many Vereins present in their best costumes. In Bavaria, each small town has at least one Schuhplattler Verein, so there were many Schuhplattlers present, including about 100 of us from North America. The group from Milwaukee was the largest American group, as their club has a 30-year relationship with the Füssen club and that is why the North American contingent was invited to be present at the Gaufest.
It was wonderful to see so many costumed Schuhplattlers decked out in their finest and crowding the huge hall! In North America, we hold a Gaufest every two years and all the clubs from across U.S. and Canada come together, with about 2000 Schuhplattlers attending. In Bavaria, there are many Gaufeste, in many different towns, which they hold annually, and each one might be attended by 2000 Schuhplattlers (not the same 2000), or more!
Before the dance performances started, there were speeches, some local singers and musicians performed, and a local dignitary recited poetry. Speeches and poetry recitations occurred at intervals throughout the event, but it was mostly dance performances. At the end of the evening, there was even a short segment of social dancing, in which we enthusiastically joined.
At the Füssen festival, many (20 or so) local groups each performed an Ehrentanz (honor dance), and it was fascinating to us to see the ways in which their performances differ from our own, as well as the similarities. Especially at the Füssen Gaufest, we noticed that all the women who danced were fairly young--none older than about thirty, I would guess. Apparently, in that region, the women stop dancing when they have had their first child. I am very glad that isn't a requirement here! Of course, many of them start dancing very young. One young woman from Lechbruck sat at our table briefly to get her breath back after her performance, and we found out that she is twenty and has been doing Schuhplattler dancing since she was 10. There didn't appear to be a particular age at which men stopped dancing; the majority of the men were fairly young, but there were some much older men in the performances we saw.
In all the Schuhplattler performances in Füssen, for every dance, the circle of women did a continuous traveling spin around the Plattlers during the entire dance except for the waltz sequence. They looked so beautiful, and graceful! (Later, I did notice that the performance floor was as smooth and slick as glass; I am sure that helped!) We do a lot of spinning in our club, but not as continuously as that!
The performances, done to the music of a local band, followed one another with unbroken precision. They were all done on a raised stage so they could be seen from quite a ways away, which was a good thing, considering the size of the hall. The festival was held in a huge "tent" that held many thousands of people, and which was full to bursting at several points. In Bavaria, the local brewery (every town seems to have its own brewery!) sponsors the Gaufeste, and they set up carnival rides, concessions, and the enormous tent, which has a wood floor and includes food booths and at which they sell liter-mugs of beer. There is a small admission charge, but everything at the festival is relatively inexpensive by U.S. standards. A liter of beer cost about $5.00.
We went around and talked to a few of the Germans, most of whom did not speak English, so we had to muddle through with my somewhat limited German. It was fun, though, communicating and (mostly) being understood. Good incentive for continuing to study German! We asked one group of Schuhplattlers how many liter beers they could drink, and one of them boasted that he could drink ten! I asked him how many he had drunk already, and he told us that he was on number five!
The festival continued Sunday morning, with a traditional Mass followed by a parade through town. The American contingent was included in the parade, but Roger and I decided to stand out and observe this one, and I took several rolls of pictures. Every Verein seemed to have its own band, a children's group, and the adult group, and there were also horses pulling decorated wagons interspersed throughout. The parade lasted for about two hours; there were a lot of groups! It was a lot of fun to see the similarities and the differences between the various groups. I have posted some pictures from the Gaufeste. After the parade, there were more dance performances, food, drink, and socializing until 5 p.m.
After the Füssen Gaufest, we stayed in Grainau, a village next to Garmisch-Partenkirken, for a week. We enjoyed our time there, exploring Garmisch and the surrounding countryside, with another trip to Füssen and trips to Ettal and Oberammergau. We enjoyed shopping at the many "Trachten" shops (one or more in each town), which sell traditional (and not-so-traditional) Bavarian-style clothing, and doing some research into the costumes and traditions of the area.
We attended a Schuhplattler folk evening at a restaurant in Mittenwald, which we really enjoyed. Most of the people at the restaurant seemed to be locals--certainly the people at our table were--although there were some tourists, as well. We had dinner and listened to a great band, which included several performances by one of the musicians who played the spoons in addition to his other accomplishments. There were also Schuhplattler dancers, who performed three dances over the course of the evening, and some social dancing, which we enjoyed. There was also a "contest" at the end of the evening. The band selected four couples from audience volunteers and had them guess how large a piece of a 5-inch-diameter log would weigh a certain amount (100 grams? I don't recall the exact number). Then each couple in turn used a small cross-cut saw to cut off a chunk of the log that they thought would weigh the right amount (in cadence with the music the band played). After each couple had cut off their piece, the MC weighed each one on an old balance scale and announced the winner. Prizes were awarded for first, second, and third place. It was an interesting contest, unlike anything else we saw, and a lot of fun!
When we were in Garmisch, we also made the obligatory trek to Füssen to see Neuschwanstein, the fairy-tale castle built by King Ludwig II of Bavaria after which the Disneyland castle is modeled, and Hohenschwangau, the castle in which King Ludwig II grew up. Neuschwanstein is on top of a hill, so we had an energetic half-hour hike through the forest to see it, but it was worth it. It is quite possibly the most famous castle in the world, and it is generally thought to be the prettiest.
Another evening, we had dinner at a local hotel restaurant that claimed to have a Schuhplattler show. We were very disappointed in the evening (despite a good band and excellent food) because the only Schuhplattler done was two inexpert Schuhplattlers by two young boys (about ten-years-old) without partners. There was also no place for social dancing, so we left early and took a walk through town instead.
One memory of Garmisch that I did not capture on film was the day that five light-brown cows, with bells around their necks, calmly walked through the main streets of town. They were strung quite a ways apart, and bringing up the rear was their shepherd, on a bicycle!
In Dachau, we attended a Gaufest, which was similar in many ways to the one in Füssen. The costumes in Dachau were more varied, however. In Füssen, almost all the costumes were very similar to the ones Enzian Schuhplattler wears, with variations in color and shawl styles and jewelry, or suspender (Traeger) and coat styles for the men, but basically the same. In Dachau, the traditional woman's costume is very different, with an elaborate hat and neck ornament (a huge gold and silver jeweled clasp attached to a black scarf that is wound around the throat a couple of times and fastened in front), as well as an elaborate floral-patterned black dress with a high-waisted, boned and stitched bodice. The men also wear a completely different costume, with long wool trousers, a silk striped waistcoat, a short wool jacket, and a hat similar to a top hat. (You'll have to check out the pictures, if you have Web access. My descriptions don't do the costumes justice.)
In Dachau, also, there were more figure dances interspersed with the Schuhplattlers. The ages of the women were also more varied, with older women participating as well as young women.
The setup was similar to the one in Füssen: a large tent with a wooden floor and picnic-style tables set up inside, with food (huge soft pretzels and baked chicken, among other things) and beer (in liter mugs, again) inside, and a carnival and concessions outside.
In Dachau, Roger and I did walk in the parade with the rest of the Americans (in the pouring rain--luckily, our hotel had loaned us umbrellas!), and I was fascinated to see how many of the townspeople were there to watch us. We had been told that the parades that the Bavarian Gaufeste have are for their own benefit only and not to expect much of a crowd, but even in the pouring rain, people lined the streets--with their dogs--to see us walk by. This parade also lasted about two hours, so by the time it finished, my feet were soaked through. We had it better than the bands, though, who played throughout the parade without the benefit of umbrellas and who were completely drenched! As in the parade in Füssen, the American contingent was honored by being at the beginning of the parade, so after we finished walking, I stayed and took pictures of the other groups as they returned to the festival grounds.
At both Gaufeste, I was struck by the number of participants, the variations in their costumes, the size of the groups that participated (often 40 or more people in the band, plus 30-40 dancers in each group), and the shared camaraderie of the dancers. It was a memorable experience.
After leaving Dachau, we headed south, taking a route that wound through several small towns from which the dances and traditions of Enzian Schuhplattler originate. We stopped in Miesbach, which is where our costume (or Tracht) originated, and in Hausham and Reit-im-Winkl, towns where two of our dances originated. We also went to Wendlstein, or tried to; on the map, it looked like a city, but it is really a mountain peak, with access only on foot or by cable car. Since it was a very cloudy day, we did not go to the top, but it was fun being at the base of it. One of our dances, the Wendlstoana, is named for Wendlstein, so it had particular significance to us.
We stayed in the town of Ramsau, near Berchtesgaden, for three days. We toured the salt mine in Berchtesgaden, which was great fun. The tour was in German, but they had recorded information in English, Italian, and French, so at each stop, we gathered around the speaker that spouted English so we could understand what was going on. They gave us miner's clothes to put on over our own clothes, and we rode a little "train," where we sat astride a kind of bench and sped down into the mines. Then we got off and, in family groups, slid down a long slide, like a wide banister, deeper into the mine. (That was fun, but it was long, and very steep!) We walked through the mine and heard about how they mine salt there by drilling through the rock and flushing the salt out with water. We slid down another wooden slide and saw more of the mine, then went by boat across an underground lake. We went straight up in a cable-car to get back out of the mine, then toured a small museum. Then it was back on the "train" for our ride through the narrow tunnels and out again. It was a wonderfully educational and fun trip! I am glad we went early in the day, though, because it got very crowded later!
That same day, we went to the Koenigssee (the King's Lake). There are lots of shops and restaurants there, so we did some shopping, but we also hiked part way around the lake and rented a row boat and rowed on the lake for an hour. Then we went in a cable car up Mt. Jenner and hiked the remaining distance to the peak (about a 30-minute hike). It was wonderful to sit on top of the mountain and view the other Alps all around, to see the lake down below, and the many Bavarian villages in the surrounding valleys.
The next day, we went to the world's largest ice caves, the Eisriesenwelt. What an experience! Getting to them took a long time, as they are on the top of a mountain in Austria. First, we drove to the small town of Werfen, Austria, then we started the ascent to the caves. We drove up and up and up into the clouds for at least half an hour before we came to the parking area. Then we hiked uphill for about fifteen minutes, then took a cable car straight up a cliff, then hiked uphill on the side of the mountain for another fifteen minutes before we reached the entrance. It is not a trip for the faint of heart, or anyone not in good physical condition! At the entrance to the ice caves, they handed every fourth or fifth person an old miner's lamp, with an open flame, and we proceeded into the caves. Once in the caves, the entire one-hour tour, we were either walking up steps or down them, with only short breaks in between. Inside the caves, we climbed 134 meters--that is a lot of elevation, especially when the major part of the climb is one long flight of steps! It was worth it, though; the ice is fantastic, and the sheer enormity of the caves is mind-boggling. It was a fantastic and very memorable part of our vacation, and I highly recommend it to anyone with a lot of stamina.
After our morning in the ice caves (again, I was very glad we got there early; by the time we came out, the lines were incredibly long, and those people had walked even further, because the closest parking lots were not very big), we drove to Salzburg and spent the afternoon exploring the fortress and the town. Especially since we in Enzian Schuhplattler had just had a small part in the musical, "The Sound of Music," it was fun to be in Salzburg where the story took place. I bought a couple of books that tell "the real story," so we could find the haunts of the Family von Trapp and relate their story to what we saw.
To get to the fortress, which is high on a hill overlooking the city, we took a cable car straight up. We had a great view of the city from the fortress, and it was nice to relax there and have a drink after the walking we had been doing.
We explored Munich for several days, taking in the shopping district, the main railway station, the Hofbrauhaus (which was too noisy and smoky for us to do more than walk through), taking a tram to a beer garden across town where we heard there might be dancing (there was, but it was to disco music, and the room was so smoky that we decided against sitting in there), visiting the site of the 1972 Olympics, the BMW museum, and the zoo (in hopes of seeing an Auerhahn bird (no luck)--Schuhplattler dancing imitates the mating behavior of the Auerhahn bird, supposedly). And, of course, we did some shopping at the many Trachten stores and enjoyed the local food.
We had a fabulous time on our three-a-half-week vacation in Europe, and I enjoyed every part of it. Being part of the two Gaufeste and traveling to the small towns from which our dances originated were highlights of the trip for me, but it was all wonderful!
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