Let's take a minute for Munich

The no-frills flights boom has had the potential for radically altering the flavour of holidays, but most attention seems to be given to the usual fun-n-sun destinations in Spain, France and Italy.

Not many people might consider Germany for a weekend break, but they are missing out on a country that has many of the same qualities that attract visitors to Britain. Half-timbered houses, grand palaces, country gardens, stunning cathedrals and rich museums all stand as reminders that before WWI it was Germany and not Italy or France that attracted the most travellers on their cultural Grand Tours of the continent.

Both Britain and Germany also share a thirst for beer. Although we have enjoyed many a British beer festival, the German beerfests are on an unrivalled scale and are justfiably world famous. Over the years we've visited the country's four biggest beer festivals: Bremen's Freimarkt, Hamburg's Domfest, Stuttgart's Volksfest and (the daddy of them all) Munich's Oktoberfest.

Our visit to Munich was our third trip to Germany and Oktoberfest was our second beer festival. We weren't prepared for Munich to be such an enormous city with many beautiful monuments and acres of cultural landmarks which deserved far more time than we could afford on our short visit.

The city is named after the Benedictine monks who established a monastery here about 1300 years ago.
Here is the city mascot, hoisting a stein of ale. So who are we to argue with thousands of years of tradition? Let's get the steins in!

First though, we caught the grand parade which marches through the city on the morning of the first Sunday of Oktoberfest. About 7,000 people take part, most of them dressed in traditional costumes and marching to brass bands. The breweries sponsor decorated carts pulled by drayhorses while pulling up the rear is an array of livestock including thoroughbred horses, oxen and even goats.

It's a colourful and noisy display of ribbons, flags, harvest garlands and non-stop yodelling which altogether lasts over two hours. Unless you have a seat in one of the stands along the way, you might find that after an hour you've seen enough troupes of yodelling riflemen in suede shorts to last you a lifetime.

Oh yes, the yodelling. Visit Oktoberfest and you'll hear many a chap in gingham let rip with a screech of YEA-hoo-hoo-hooooo! I think it means 'are we having fun yet?' Or 'somebody call an ambulance, quick!'

Oktoberfest is the rowdiest of the beer festivals we've seen. Like the other beer festivals, there are plenty of rides, carnival games, markets and food stalls on a scale unlike that seen anywhere in Europe. For instance, there's this famous 5-loop rollercoaster in the shape of the Olympic rings.

The festivals remind me of an American State Fair and for a few days during the festivities Munich does host a livestock expo on the grounds.

The grounds are smaller though than Stuttgart's, but with more beer tents crammed in. Stuttgart hosts five tent and Munich has about three times as many. Each tent is capable of holding 5000 revellers for a night of music, drinking, sausages and pretzels.

The festival attracts a lot of American college students, plenty of whom we saw carted off on stretchers after one stein too many.

Our time in Munich was brief, only 24 hours in all, but time enough to catch a bit of culture after the party. The Glyptothek is a small gallery packs a whallop with its stunning collection of ancient Classical sculpture.

Any student of Classical art like myself will know that many prime examples of Greek and Roman sculpture can be found here. Chief of these are the mythical figures from the Aegina temple and the dozing Barberini faun.

You are free to snap away with your camera but to my consternation my batteries failed me and I was unable to buy spares, so I have only a couple snapshots.

If you're visiting Munich over the weekend, I can recommend you check out the NH chain's Deutscher Kaiser hotel. This 4-star city centre business hotel slashes its rates for weekend stays and offers excellent value for a quality hotel in a big European city. Avoid the offer of a breakfast buffet, though, as this will set you back a whopping 15 euros per person!

We enjoyed a magnificent view from our 12th floor room.

The room was on the cozy side and done in a minimalist design with dark wood panelling and polished wooden floors. The room had cable TV, fridge and a pricey minibar, but no kettle to make tea or coffee. We found the staff extremely welcoming and helpful.

The hotel lacks any luxurious amenities. There is no restaurant, no gym and only a tiny bar in the lobby so frankly it's hard to see how the hotel has achieved 4-star status. If we had paid more and were expecting more we would not have been so happy with our stay, but our only complaint was that the water for our showers was a bit tepid.

From the hotel we could see Oktoberfest (the Ferris wheel on the far left)...

...and the hotel is directly across the street from Munich Hbf (the central train station), which is convenient for both intercity trains and local transport. Speaking of which, it's probably time for our train back to Stuttgart, so that's all the time we have for Munich today.