Kaltenberg Medieval Festival

So it’s actually September 11th and I have some serious catching up to do –   The kids are now in school, seminary, hip hop, soccer, and piano and life is settling down just a bit – so bear with me as I start way back in July and try to get all this recorded.  It’s been a great summer – and I’m hoping to be caught up before February!

So, back to Kaltenberg.  Some friends had told us about this Medieval Festival saying that it was one of their kids greatest memories of living in in Europe.  We soon learned it had the BIGGEST jousting tournament in Germany.  We made plans with the Chuggs and bought our tickets early.  It was SOOO much fun!  The Chuggs came to our house a day early and we had dinner and played games and then caravanned down to the Kaltenberg Arena just outside of Munich.

 

The entire village seemed to be in costume… and that’s because they were.  All locals in costume got into the festival free.  It seemed their ‘job’ was to be part of the atmosphere.  It was awesome.  Villagers carrying around baskets of vegetables, little medieval children locked up in a cage and men standing around listening to the local entertainment. It really felt like we stepped back in time and that we were the only ones wearing GAP sweatshirts.

   

We loved watching these girls for a minute.  So cute.

  

These guys were fun street performers.

   

One of our favorite things to eat were these baked potatoes… loaded with some kind of sour cream and butter.

 

The other were these wild berry crepes from this crepe shop. Yum.  They were served on a wood plank which you needed to return after eating to get your deposit back.

Ryan and Katie trying out a medieval game.

After some necessary food tasting we happened upon the town parade highlighting everyone in their costume.  The kids squeezed up front but I couldn’t get anywhere close so I hung out in the back and watched the crowd.

Megan and I liked this fairy.

 

Most of us…

Katie standing if front of a real tree lady.

 

The towns ‘Strong man’.

   

Love this picture of Matt, high fiving Dad after getting down from the Royal King’s Chair.

  

Another snack: fresh ‘out of the oven’ bread sliced with creamy cheese stuff on top.

 

I gestured to this man that I was going to take his picture and he smiled at me.  I just loved his outfit.  These guards outside the gate were happy to have their picture taken too.

 

 

After several hours of wandering through the town, eating delicious medieval food, and being marvelously entertained we headed over to the big arena and found our seats.

The jousting tournament was awesome.  It was actually like a full two hour play with a plot, and good guys and bad guys and magical wizards – and even though we couldn’t really understand all the German we still had a good idea of who to cheer for and who to boo.  It was quite impressive and really intense.  Men on horses appeared from every angle galloping into the arena and back out the other side.

At the beginning all the characters of the town came out to parade around the arena – including ‘Strong Man’.

Then the black knights come out dragging their ‘good guy’ prisoner around until he escapes.  The tricks and stunts were pretty impressive.

Loved these guys.

They kept charging down the arena full speed flipping around and hopping from one side of the horse to another.  It was amazing.

Oh, and then the middle of the arena kept opening for horses to come galloping up there or disappear into.

This is towards the end where the opposing sides battle it out – throwing flaming arrows and then charging each other.

Then the battle came down to a jousting tournament.  Kind of intense.  Awesome to watch. 

The good guy.

Great day!!