Just on the heels of Kranzplatzfest comes Wiesbaden's historic WilhelmstrasseFest on the Michigan Avenue of town. This is the oldest street festival in Germany. It has all the earmarks of a German Festival: local beer and wine tents, meat-on-a-stick, wurst of all types, pommes frites, and about 5 stages for music.
During the day, it has more of a family and kids theme. Stages are for young performers and dancers. There are artist booths all around the Kur House. As is typical, Germans show up for these things - everybody - all ages. No one brings a cooler. Everyone puts down a 2 euro deposit on a glass from their favorite beverage vendor and you don't see any bottles or plastic cups littering the streets.
A lot of time an effort goes into the Erdbeerbowle drinks. Erdbeer are strawberries and the Erdbeerbowle is a mixture of strawberries in a punch of German white wine, sparkling wine and lemons. These are extremely popular judging from the sheer amount of booths devoted to these drinks. Ok, I didn't see too many guys drinking these so I wussed out, I can't tell you if they're any good.
The music was a great mixture of all eras. I found myself by a stage with 4 fifty-something guys doing 60s music... and surprisingly well. Check out the balding heads in front of me....
Their song choices really reflect a love of early english and american rock and roll. I have heard more Byrd's covers in the last few months than I have heard in my lifetime.
And Dylan is held in high esteem here. You can hear "Knockin on Heaven's Door" from just about every band whether jazz, rock cover band, folkies, or even 80's bands. How about the dress code? I'm still not quite used to it. T-shirts and shorts are not the usual. You'll be glad to know that, unlike this guy, I don't have Capris yet.
Another thing that is constantly surprising... no matter how much beer and wine and Jag shots are ingested, you never see stumbling or beligerent drunks (myself included of course).
This was a particularly busy booth and tent...they were flying the Bavarian flag so they had traditional southern German food and beer. And BIG beers like you see in the Hofbrau House.
And, it didn't hurt that the waiters were dressed appropriately.
So, we'll have to wait now for the the July 4th Rudesheim Festival with lit ups castles and fireworks. It my just be a coincidence but it looks like we'll celebrate America's freedom here too.
Tschuss!
