Pedro and I have visited Mt. Angel multiple times. I have been there during the Christmas season, with many vendors under one roof in celebration, and every single visit has been delightful. Sometimes there are lots of tourists, but usually it’s a very sleepy town. I had never visited during Oktoberfest until this year, and confidently talked all three of my boys into joining me there. They were kind and supported me, and came along without any fuss.
We parked at a giant parking lot on grass, then boarded a large wagon with seats, pulled by a tractor into town. They dropped us opposite the area I wanted to see first, so we had to quickly find our way using maps that people kindly handed out as soon as we unloaded into the street.
Oh my goodness. Oktoberfest is madness!! I had no idea it would be shoulder-to-shoulder people, loud, chaotic, gigantic, overwhelming. I would still go and do this again one day, but it is best to know what I am in for, and to prepare mentally for all of it.
We still had a good day. At 12:15 pm, the second Weiner Dog Race of the day got set up.
The very first thing I wanted to do was visit the “Weiner Dog Races.” I think this is what Americans call them because “Dachshund” is too hard to say. We missed the very first race at noon (see above: parking lot, tractor ride, wrong side of town, map), but we got good seats after that. If you have time, watch the six-second video below. It is hilarious.
The fastest Dachshund would have won, but she ran lickety-split right across the field to the wrong person! Then to another wrong person! Two of the dogs stopped to play on the way. It was all so funny and over so fast. The races happened every fifteen minutes, to stretch it out.
In between dog races, we watched part of a juggling and comedy show. We watched kids jump around in the biggest bouncy houses I have ever seen in my life, modeled after a zoo, and another after a jungle, so they had multiple rooms and pathways through fake inflated animals and were larger than many American houses. There were huge slides and slingshot rides and trampolines for kids. There were animal balloons and ice cream, cotton candy, and elephant ears heaped with powdered sugar.
We left that event area and walked past a beautiful church, down Chruch Street toward downtown again, where it got more crowded. We passed lovely shops and restaurants with outdoor food patios. We were all hungry and I had my heart set on the sausage restaurant that I have eaten at before. So I refused to stop and made everyone come with me all the way to the center of town. But there were too many people to operate the sausage restaurant, so they had set up fair-style tents and kiosks outside. It looked too “fast-food” to me, so I talked everyone into leaving with me to find a better place.
On the way, we saw tuba players getting ready to play. We stayed to watch.
I have a cute, short video below, that provides some more insight into what it was like.
We walked a couple of blocks and could not find any areas with less people, so we turned around and began walking back to the main square. While we were still searching for a place to eat, the giant Glockenspiel was about to begin its hourly thing. We found a good position and watched it.
The figures in the Glockenspiel are on a rotating platform, and each time someone gets in front of the middle window, it stops and plays a music to represent that person’s story. The Kalapuya tribesman, the pioneer man and woman, a city founder, a monk and nun, and finally a tuba player.
When all the figures have circled, our gaze turned upward. The children, representing the future, emerge on a swing and the song Edelweiss plays.
We had also been in a position to people-watch. The mood here is festive and fun. Many people were in traditional Bavarian costume. My photos don’t show it, but lots of women wore dirndls and lots of men proudly wore gorgeous lederhosen, with extraordinary hand-embroidery. Men and boys wore traditional hats, and women wore flower circlets. Most adults and children were having a very good time.
Every other food place we passed had a line stretching into next Tuesday. We realized the shortest lines had been the fair tent at the sausage place. So we went back. It was efficient and we had food right away, but it was not the quality I am used to, and there were zero places provided to sit. I wanted a sausage AND a pretzel, so I received two paper plates holding food, which made it impossible to eat because I held an unstable paper plate in each hand. In frustration, I crossed the street and found a patch of grass to sit on. I did feel better with sausage in my belly.
I saw lots of young men eager to find beer, which makes me wonder, with all this craziness at noon, what it’s like at night when everyone has eaten lots of sugar, hyped up and exhausted themselves, then added many pints of beer.
The boys and I found each other again, and found a new patch of grass to sit on while we shared the soft pretzels and watched harried law enforcement attempt to direct traffic on the main road, still open through the center of town. Every so often they blew whistles and yelled and waved their arms till drivers from both directions saw them and stopped. Then they let 200-300 people cross the street. Then they began yelling and blowing whistles again, to make people stop crossing the street, so they could let vehicle traffic begin again.
When we were done eating, we found the “nice” porta potties, which are better because you can use actual water and soap to wash your hands after. We entered the next zone of chaos, to scan the vendor tents. The selection was somewhat small, compared to the excellent farmer’s markets we have been seeing. It may have been larger, but we didn’t look carefully. We walked down the center of the vendors and eyed jewelry, jars of honey, watercolour paintings, crocheted hats, handmade refrigerator magnets, and offers to install a cost-effective air conditioner, or donate to a good cause. Absolutely nothing caught our interest at that moment, but we didn’t try very hard. There were other sections that we didn’t enter. Also, many of the actual brick-and-mortar buildings in town were decorated festively and had their doors wide open to tourists. That probably competed with the vendor tents.
At the end of the vendor tents, we found ourselves at the pick up spot for the tractor ride back to our car. We stopped, looked at each other, and stepped forward to the loading zone. HA!! All that planning and excitement, and I was ready to go after an hour and a half.
The Mt. Angel Abbey is walking distance from the town center, but we drove out to it on our way home. Pedro and I love this place and their brews, and since they are small batch beers, one cannot get them anywhere but here. The kids waited in the car while we went inside. Even though his twins are 21 years old, and old enough to be inside, they wanted the quiet in the car.
Once more, we waited in a long line. It allowed us to chat in peace (compared to the Oktoberfest) and observe around us. The place was absolutely packed with people. We had deluded ourselves that may tourists would be in town and not here.
We made the easy, 45-minute drive home. I was still wearing my festive clothing, and we staged a photo, so that Jupyter and I could join the wiener dog races.
My verdict: The Mt. Angel Oktoberfest is a much bigger deal than I imagined or prepared myself for. I highly recommend it as a family festival because it’s a beautiful, friendly town in an unbelievably beautiful Oregon country setting. Bring your kids for sure. It’s probably the closest thing to Leavenworth, WA we have in Oregon. Plus – beer brewed by monks! If you don’t like crowds, or noise, or sausages and pretzels, don’t bother.
If you like small, beautiful towns, sausages and pretzels, Bavarian heritage, and things surrounding an Abbey, then definitely do go to Mt. Angel any other time of year, when it is quiet.
