Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
Skiing
Bavarian slopes still lure the sport's elite to an-
nual World Cup races held in such resorts as
Garmisch-Partenkirchen, Reit im Winkl and
Berchtesgaden. On New Year's Day,
Garmisch-Partenkirchen is also a stop on the
four-part Vierschanzen-Tournee, the World
Cup ski-jumping competition. Famous female
champions from Bavaria include Rosi Mittermaier, a two-time Olympic gold-medal win-
ner in 1976, and more recently Martina Ertl and Hilde Gerg. In early 2005 Alois Vogl
ended the men's drought by snagging the World Cup for slalom.
If you want to follow the thrills, spills and manager
tantrums in Germany's top soccer league, it's all
online at
www.bundesliga.de
(in English).
TRACHTEN
If the tourist bumf is to be believed, Bavaria is full of locals cavorting around in
Trachten
(folk
costume), the men in lederhosen, the women in figure-hugging, cleavage-baring, aproned dresses
called dirndl. You may not see many such exotic folk on the streets of Nuremberg, Ingolstadt or
Passau, but travel to the Alpine region, and you'll be in cliché heaven. Many young Munich city
dwellers own these traditional outfits, but most only leave the closet for Oktoberfest and special
occasions, but things are different in rural areas, especially among older generations. If you want
to see real
Trachten
on parade, go to any folk festival or even just a Sunday morning church ser-
vice in Oberammergau or Berchtesgaden.
Munich has several traditional costume emporia selling everything from the real hand-em-
broidered deal to made-heaven-knows-where imitations untouched by human hand. Getting
garbed up for a beer festival or a night in a beer hall is an essential part of the fun in the Bavarian
capital.
Arts
Literature
Quite a few German writers of the 18th and 19th centuries, including Jean Paul and ETA
Hoffmann, lived in southern Germany, but the golden age of Bavarian literature kicked off
in the second half of the 19th century. Some of the finest writers of the time, Thomas
Mann and Frank Wedekind (famous for his coming-of-age tale
Spring Awakening,
1891)
among them, contributed to
Simplicissimus,
a satirical magazine founded in 1896 with a
