Oktoberfest

First held in 1810 to celebrate the wedding of Crown Prince Ludwig and Princess Therese of Saxony-Hildburghausen, Oktoberfest has grown from a single royal celebration into the world's largest Volksfest, drawing around seven million visitors to Munich's Theresienwiese each year. Running from mid-September to the first Sunday in October, the festival combines a genuine beer festival with a full traveling funfair, spanning sixteen to eighteen days.

Only beer brewed within Munich's city limits by six official breweries — Augustiner, Hacker-Pschorr, Hofbräu, Löwenbräu, Paulaner and Spaten — may be served inside the festival's beer tents, a rule that keeps Oktoberfest rooted specifically in Munich's own brewing tradition even as its fame has spread worldwide. Alongside the beer, hearty Bavarian food is central to the experience: pretzels, roast chicken, schnitzel and traditional potato dumplings all feature heavily, designed to balance out the festival's famously significant beer consumption.

Visitors are strongly encouraged to dress in traditional dirndl and lederhosen, and tent reservations for weekends are essential, often booked six to twelve months in advance. Despite occasional cancellations through its history, most recently during the COVID-19 pandemic, Oktoberfest has endured for over two centuries as one of the clearest, most concentrated expressions of Bavarian culture anywhere in the world.