Public holidays in Germany are "celebrated" exactly when they fall, so as the 1st May was a Saturday this year, all the shops were shut and the Bavarians were out erecting new maypoles all over the place. This happens every few years in villages and towns once the substance of the old maypole becomes potentially a bit dodgy and needs to be taken down for safety reasons (I'm just making an educated guess at that part).
We cycled to Unterbrunn, a village not so far away, to watch the new maypole going up. It's a very traditional affair with lots of dirndl- and lederhosen-clad locals looking on, while the strong guys use solid wooden sticks to gradually push the pole into place, the brass oompah-band plays in the background and the beer flows into the litre mugs. We just managed to watch a little of the action and find a table in the beer tent before the heavens opened.
Lucy has never cycled 19 km before on a single day, so we were very proud of her (and so was her granpa).
