Ludwigsburg Pumpkin Festival

A couple of weeks ago we went to the Kurbisausstellung in Ludwigsburg, Germany. This is the largest pumpkin festival in Europe. 

Contests are held for the largest pumpkins in Germany and in Europe. These are huge pumpkins!  Last year the heaviest pumpkin was 1054 kg!

This festival is also huge. It doesn't look that big when you first arrive but the majority of the festival is located behind the palace.

There are a variety of pumpkin foods as well as typical German foods. I went out on a limb and tried the vegetarian pumpkin burger. It was delicious!

The pumpkin sculptures (I guess you could call them) were very impressive!

We bought two small pumpkins, which I let Elsie pick out.  I never knew the were so many types of pumpkin!

We had a really good time at this festival and I would highly recommend it! 

Our Weekend

We had a busy busy weekend! Saturday we went to Schierstein Harbour Festival. I'm pretty sure that this is now my favorite fest, so far, in Germany. Before, my favorite was Wilhelmstrassen Fest, and while I still do love that one, I like how this one is on the river. It was a very large fest with numerous food stands and a ton of rides and games for kids, as well as a market. There were also dragon boat races on the water with plenty of seating to just sit and watch in the shade.

I managed to actually take pictures this weekend! (go me)

Sunday we went to see the Dalai Lama speak. Definitely a once in a lifetime kind of experience! 

He was speaking in the park and there were thousands (maybe?) of people there. We got there quite early so we had fairly close seats but were in the sun the whole time. 

He spoke in English and then a translator translated to German. The speech was great, all about peace and unity in the world. Very humbling. 

I forgot to bring Elsie a hat.

That was our weekend! What did you do?

Festivals to Attend: Wilhelmstraßenfest!

Wilhelmstraßenfest is held annually on the second weekend in June in Wiesbaden, Germany. It is located on Wilhelmstraße and surrounds the Hessian State Theater. First started in 1977 to honor the reopening of the theater, it is now one of the largest street festivals in Germany! We were fortunate enough to attend the festival this year and we had a blast!

There are plenty of rides for the little ones and food and drink stands as far as you can see! We had bratwursts, thai food, and of course BIER! There was also a lot of strawberry and fruit infused prosecco which was yummy! 

It was packed! So unfortunately these people ended up in my shots of the decorations haha.

There was a ferris wheel in front of the kurhaus as well! along with over 100 craft vendors!

There were at least 4 or 5 stages where bands were playing continuously. We stopped and watched for a couple of hours. Flo & Chris was the cover band playing and they were amazing! Very entertaining, I would definitely watch another one of their shows!

Here's us being silly. We had so much fun! We wish we had known it was such a big event and can't wait to go back next year!