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Visitors of the Wurstmarkt in Bad Duerkheim can enjoy regional wines in little wine stands. The wine fest runs from today through Tuesday and continues Sept. 16 to 19.
The world’s biggest wine fest, Duerkheimer Wurstmarkt, will start today. Bad Duerkheim, along the German Wine Street, will host this traditional fest and lure about 600,000 visitors from all over the world.
Since it will be the fest’s 600th anniversary, it will begin with a parade at 4 p.m. today. More than 750 participants on floats and in walking groups will present the history of Wurstmarkt on a 3.2-kilometer route. Anybody wanting to watch the fest parade should consider coming early. Some streets will close to motorized traffic at 2 p.m.
Almost 300 vendors and ride owners will provide their offers in an amusement park set up on the 45,000-square-meter fest grounds next to the Duerkheimer Fass, the world’s biggest wine barrel. This barrel actually houses a restaurant, and if it was used as a barrel, it could hold 1.7 million liters of wine.
The annual wine fest will be celebrated in two parts: today through Tuesday and Sept. 16 to 19.
The “Wurstmarkt,” meaning “sausage fair,” is 600 years old. It received its name from the fact that fest goers ate enormous amounts of sausages during the event in the first part of the 19th century.
However, the main attraction of the fest are 36 little wine tents called “Schubkaerchler,” or “wheelbarrows,” because vintners rolled wine barrels on wheelbarrows up to Monte Sancti Michaeli, Michelsberg hill, to quench pilgrims’ thirst in the 15th century.
Each year at the end of September on Michael’s day, pilgrims visited the little chapel on top of the hill. On the way up there, vendors sold their goods. Later, church dignitaries no longer accepted this kind of pilgrimage. Market activities were relocated to the bottom of Michelsberg, and the sausage fair was born.
In 1910, city officials decided to celebrate the fest earlier in September and no longer on Michaels’ day because of better weather. The Wurstmarkt was extended by a day in 1926, by seven days 1951 and by eight days in 1965. Since 1985, the fest has been nine days long.
The historical wine tents will open at 10 a.m. and the rides at noon each day.
Rides will include merry-go-rounds, auto scooters, a giant Ferris wheel, a rollercoaster, a haunted mansion and fast rides such as Hot Shot, The King, Take Off, Shaker and Happy Sailor. There will be food and candy booths, fest tents with live bands and a wine village with wine tents.
The event’s first fireworks display called “Fire Magic at Half Time,” created by a pyro technician world champion, will be lit at 9 p.m. Tuesday. The second fireworks display will be with music and close out the fest at 9 p.m. Sept. 19.
Trains are available to give visitors the chance to leave their cars at home. They run from Kaiserslautern to Bad Duerkheim about every 30 minutes until 6 p.m., then trains travel every hour. Passengers have to change trains in Neustadt.
For details on train times, visit www.vrn.de or www.der-takt.de, or get the train schedule at the Window to Rheinland-Pfalz counter in the Kaiserslautern Military Community Center.
For more information on Wurstmarkt, visit www.duerkheimer-wurstmarkt.de or www.facebook.com/duerkheimer.wurstmarkt.
