Today at 5pm was the opening of the Tübingen Stadtfest, which takes place only through tomorrow evening. I’ve been told it’s only held every other year, so it was surprising to discover it’s just for one day.

Anyway, I went to the official opening ceremony in the Marktplatz today, which was held in the big plaza in that’s in front of city hall (you can see that plaza from the webcam link on the right of the blog page). As official ceremonies go, it was pretty low-key. First, a band called the Tübingen “horse guards” stood on the stage and played a fanfare.  I have that name in quotes, as I think that’s what the group is called, but there were no horses in evidence, just fancy hats.

The mayor then said a few words and thanked a group of people from the sister city of County Durham in Ireland for biking from there to here to raise money for a charity. They are also a musical group, who will be playing tomorrow during the festival.

They gave the mayor a tie, and people in the crowd urged him to put it on, but he said he couldn’t. I didn’t understand the reason, but it soon became clear that it wouldn’t have worked well under the big apron he had to put on. It was given to him by the Bierkönigin – the Queen of the Beer. He need the apron because the main event of the ceremony was tapping the first keg of beer. Donning the apron was accompanied by another fanfare performance by the band, and then the mayor was given the hammer to tap the keg. He accomplished it with 7 whacks of the hammer; I know this because the crowd counted it off. I don’t know if that’s good luck or bad luck to do it in 7 whacks, but people seemed pleased, particularly when he filled some giant beer mugs and started handing them out to the crowd that quickly gathered at his feet (he was on a stage).

The Stadtfest had officially opened.

So the city at the moment is sort of like a giant beer garden in spots all over town. There’s supposed to be music, beyond the fanfare band, both later today and tomorrow. But what’s interesting is that while I only saw food and drink stalls — lots of drink stalls, actually — there are no stalls selling anything else.  It reminds me of the sagra festivals in Italy that were township festivals with special food and drink – it’s the first time I’ve seen anything here that’s been like that.

Anyway, below are a few photos I quickly processed when I got back home just now:  your up-to-the-minute report from the Tübingen Stadtfest. 🙂