Leon is about two and a half cheese tall, maybe four years old, has blonde hair, cool sunglasses on his nose and a Lego Transformer figure in his hand. He’s not interested in any of this at the moment, but rather: “When is the stupid subway finally coming?” Because if she came, Leon would come a little closer to his longing. Today it’s candy floss!
To be honest, it’s not that easy to get to the cotton candy or other festival activities this Saturday: the S-Bahn isn’t running as usual due to construction work, and every Munich resident knows how that affects the rest of the transport infrastructure. So it takes time to get to the two celebration hotspots this weekend: to the spring festival on the Theresienwiese, which finally lives up to its name after a rainy, snowy and horribly cold first week, and to the Auer Dult on Mariahilfplatz.
To put it bluntly: things are much more relaxed there, around the Mariahilf Church, than on the Theresienwiese. On the one hand, this is because the gastro and carousel part is not the most important thing; a mini version of the Fischer Vroni is the closest thing to a beer tent. The Auer Dult is more of a market than a folk festival – which also means that the average age is significantly higher than at the spring festival. You have to have reached a certain number of years of life before you no longer believe you can live without the advantages of a salad spinner or a spaetzle press.
This part of the Dult is really very interesting: There are pans made of granite – “you can’t get them anywhere else,” says the seller, why? -, there are guaranteed antiques from our own production, there is “The whole world of microfibre” at several stands and in different sizes: from small make-up remover cloths to floor cleaning cloths of at least one square meter, the so-called large rags.
Stecklfisch, fries, bratwurst, ice cream – that’s all you need for a decent Dult snack after shopping. That must be it, the “relaxed Munich attitude to life” that economics officer Clemens Baumgärtner spoke about at the opening.
Relaxed? At the Spring Festival? There can be no question of that on Saturday afternoon. The queues in front of the rides are long, the two large tents are closed due to overcrowding, and even the smaller beer gardens no longer let anyone in. Behind the garden fence of the Prosecco parlor, people stand with Aperol Sprizz in their hands and look with a little contempt at those who would like to come in but are not allowed.
Near the entrance is the “Wilde Heidi”, which is a roller coaster and, in a sense, the big sister of the “Wilde Maus” a few meters further: The ride with the Heidi is even more frightening than the ride with the Mouse because the gondolas don’t just go through Curves and slopes rattle, but they also rotate around their own axis every now and then so that the teenagers have something to scream about.
The dress code is much looser than at Oktoberfest, leather pants and dirndls are definitely not compulsory, people come in jeans and T-shirts – like Patrick and Paul, 13 years old, who are standing in front of the “Top Spin” and conducting financial negotiations: If you spend five euros here now for the prospect of being turned upside down and sprayed with water from below, will it be enough later for the “Predator”, which offers a completely different feeling of being thrown around? The two finally decide that they won’t get together again when they’re so young – first Top Spin, then Predator.
And Leon? Hopefully he’s gotten his cotton candy by now, which of course is available at the spring festival between all the other food – chicken, crepes, fried cobs (“The corn is hot”). And if not – it’ll take another week and the subway and tram will run normally again.