When I found out about the Frühjahrsmesse & Frühjahrsvolksfest (Spring Fair & Festival) happening in Würzburg I knew we couldn’t miss it. It’s been a long winter without much to do nearby, and we hadn’t visited Würzburg since the Christmas Markets were in town.
The fair starts three weeks before Easter and is the first big fair in Bavaria. According to the Würzburg city website, the amusement park has some 50 attractions and plenty of food and drink options (including a beer tent) to “keep the party rolling”. They divided the festival into two parts: the rides at the fair ground (Talavera) and the sales booths at the main market place, but the booths in the market place looked exactly the same to us as they do at every other weekend festival. There didn’t seem to be any special booths added for the Spring festival, so if you’re going I would recommend skipping that part unless you’ve never seen it before.
We took the train to Würzburg early on Sunday morning and walked over to the fair grounds. We could hear and see the rides almost right away, but we didn’t really have a good idea of what to expect. There was no entry fee, but we were introduced to the many rules upon our arrival at the festival entrance.
The only thing we were allowed to do is throw trash away. Germany kinda likes to say no.
We decided to do a circuit around the fair and get the lay of the land and we were thrilled to see so many attractions available, like this ride that goes around forwards and backwards.
And this kiddie ride.
And this house of mirrors and illusions.
We also liked this very colorful Snow White themed kiddie train.
We saw two bumper car arenas; one was massive while the other was smaller and meant for the kiddos. But we only made it halfway around our observational circuit before we had to stop and ride something.
It was a haunted house ride and we just couldn’t walk past it. We immediately paid and got a little card to hand to the attendant instead of a paper ticket, which I thought was very German and sustainable.
The trains for the ride were just two cars hooked together that held two to three people in each car. We sat in the front while two parents with a young kid sat in the rear. We started going up the ridiculous spiral lift hill, at which point we realized that the whole ride was just sitting on top of the truck trailer that it had been transported on. It was like a big pop-out from one of those 3D children’s books.
The ride went down a hill and into a dark corridor where all sorts of scary things popped out at us. I screamed much more than the little boy behind us. German words came blaring over the speakers and they definitely sounded scary even though I didn’t understand them. The train exited the corridor to go down another little hill before going back into the darkness, and so on. I eventually just closed my eyes, which would have been a great coping mechanism if the ride operators had not hung strange material from the ceiling that dragged over my head and shoulders… it was a totally freaky experience.
The coolest thing about this ride, and all of the other rides at the fair, was the obvious effort put into the theming. Even after we exited the train the experience wasn’t over; we got air puffed at us along the exit ramp and were let out next to a blood colored pool.
Almost everything that you see on the ride exterior was moving – there was a guy climbing up and down a rope, the ogre like fellow at the entrance was waving his weapon around, witches were flying, etc. It was pretty incredible to see that level of detail for a fair ride.
We picked our circuit back up and we weren’t surprised to find more spinning rides.
Um, yeah. I’ll get back to that scene in a minute.
We walked past the chaos in order to ride a roller coaster that we found called ‘High Explosive’.
This is a mine themed coaster with trains that resembled barrels. There were no seat belts or lap bars. You just sat there and hoped that there wasn’t any air time (there wasn’t, thankfully).
Mr. Meena definitely had more fun than I did. We couldn’t get a photo of the track itself, since it was blocked by the massive queue walls and they didn’t really want you taking photos of it. But we purchased the on ride camera photo and the folder that it came in showed the layout pretty well.
The ride went up a traditional lift hill before sending you down into four or five consecutive circles. What is it with German fairs and spinning in circles? Jeez.
I was genuinely surprised that there was a roller coaster at a small Spring Fair. Even the state fair in my home state only has a Ferris wheel and some janky small rides that make you think you’re taking your life into your hands when you ride them. But it didn’t end at that – we rode this monstrosity next.
This pendulum ride, named Konga, was another example of excellent theming. When you’re walking up the ramp to get to the platform the whole thing shakes and a gorilla scream comes out of the speakers – it’s supposed to feel like Donkey Kong is pounding the ground. Fake bananas and monkeys are strewn about the platform and other parts of the ride apparatus. The seats don’t actually stop moving either, they slowly move in a circle while waiting for enough brave souls to show up. So we climbed in awkwardly and then sat there for at least ten minutes, slowly rotating in a circle, waiting for more riders and listening to top 40 songs blasting from speakers that were mounted just above our seats (I wouldn’t mind seeing that on MaXair at Cedar Point, it was great). Talk about building suspense.
When we finally had enough capacity to start the ride things got intense. The floor dropped out from underneath us, lots of smoke came out of nowhere, and then the ride swung sideways with a yank. Mr. Meena and I have ridden many Frisbee rides in the last year – because I love them and we visited several parks that had them – but this one was the most intense by far. It swung back and forth very fast and the forces from the spinning were more intense because the circle of riders was so small (20 seats in the gondola compared to 50 on MaXair). Furthermore, it went up and up and up – I looked out at the highest point and it seemed like we were equal to the ground level of the Marienburg Fortress. We definitely got a great view of Würzburg.
Here’s a (not great quality) video I took to give you an idea of what it was like:
It wasn’t even at its full height there, it was slowing down.
And if it wasn’t enough that this ride goes really high and really fast even though it’s base is a truck trailer… it gets better. At the beginning the ride starts off back and forth, back and forth, until it reaches its peak (like any other pendulum ride). Then it maintains that peak height and speed for at least twice as long as a typical, permanent version of the ride. And just when you think the experience is over and the ride slows down, it speeds back up to hit top speed and height again!!! And it also maintains that peak level for a long time! I’ve never experienced a pendulum ride that was that intense, ever, and I definitely did not expect to experience it on a portable ride in small town Germany. Mr. Meena and I were speechless, dizzy for the next hour, and we almost lost my purse to the depths of the platform because the wind from the ride knocked it out of the designated personal belongings area.
We got some fries and bratwurst at the biergarten to try to recover. It had a nice atmosphere.
“I love you.”
We also went and saw the German beer tent. It was massive.
The waiters and waitresses were dressed in typical German festival garb and there was a band playing music. But it was warm and smelled… bad, so we didn’t stay long.
Even though I felt sick I had to ride one more thing before we left: the Monolift looping coaster. It’s not a looping coaster, by any means, but that was its name.
Super vertical, it was.
I’m in that photo, at the bottom. Does anyone want to test my sanity level? It might be time…
We have a similar enterprise ride at our home park and I love it – but this ride was not the same. The carriages were bigger and as soon as it started I got pushed down to the bottom because I couldn’t brace myself properly. I have pretty long legs so I can imagine most people were in this situation unless they were riding two to a car.
It was also a bit like the pendulum ride in its intensity. Instead of going up to vertical, spinning for a while, and then going back down it went up, then a little bit down, then up, then a little bit down, and so on for a long time. The worst part about this is that each time it leaves the vertical position it causes the cars to shake and they don’t stabilize again until after a few more vertical rotations. So basically they took a ride that’s usually pretty relaxing and enjoyable and made it a bit miserable.
I couldn’t ride anything else at that point – which is saying a lot since I can usually ride spinning rides all day – so we decided to go home. Plus we had already spent our budget for the day. The fair wasn’t cheap by any means; it cost €4 per person for the haunted ride and the roller coaster, €4 for our hilarious photo at the mine ride, €5 each for the pendulum ride, and €3.50 for the ‘looping coaster’. So we spent almost 30 euros on just four different rides, plus food and the train fare to get there. It was worth it, though.
Here are some other fun sights from the fair.
The corn stand.
The adorable crepe stand that really looked like it was made from cardboard.
The proud Roman guard in the arcade area.
And the game where you play soccer, because we are in Germany, after all.
And the trash can disguised as an ice cream cone, for all of that trash that you are allowed to throw away.
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That ice cream cone trash can has got to be the prettiest trash can I've ever seen!
It was great! But there were other ice cream cones that looked just like it but weren't trash cans – and that was confusing!