When I told my high school best friend, Matt, that I was going backpacking, he said I absolutely MUST go to a charming town in the Bavarian Alps called Oberammagau. He said the historic town put on a passion play once every ten years, and it was happening in 1990. Now I wasn’t exactly sure what a Passion Play was, but I like passion and I like plays, so I decided I must go. There was no way to know if it was actually happening or if we could even get tickets as there was no internet.
I eventually learned that the Passion Play began in 1633. The people of the town had been suffering from the plague for months, and after dozens of deaths, they made a pledge that they would act out a Passion Play about suffering, death, and resurrection every ten years, and the legend says after the pledge, there wasn’t another death from the Plague.
So if you’re looking for something to do in 2022, guess what’s playing in Oberammagau?
So back to 1990, Tanya and I made it our mission to get to Oberammagau. We rode a bus for hours and hours through the most enchanting forests and mountains I’ve ever seen, and that’s saying something since I grew up in the mountains. Picturesque cows dotted the hillsides wearing huge bells around their necks, their big gentle eyes slowly chewing their grass as they watched the bus pass. We climbed higher and higher, the air smelling fresher and crisper, until we finally arrived in the tiny Bavarian town.
It smelled like home, with the lush forests covering the mountains, the smell of evergreen, wildflowers and even a touch of snow that stays on the highest peak, even in the middle of summer.
And it looked like a fairy tale town. If you imagine an elaborate gingerbread village, that is Oberammagau. Think colorful paintings on the outside of buildings, curving doorways, swooping steeples, bright window shutters and boxes spilling flowers… This is a place where people still occasionally wear Lederhosen, feathered caps, and dirndls. It’s also renowned for it’s wood carving, and we all know woodcarvers are right at home in fairy tales.
There’s even a house called the “Hansel and Gretel House” with scenes from the fairy tale painted all over the outside. And across the street sits the “Little Red Riding Hood House” with scenes from that fairy tale painted on it.
In the center of the town was a church, and the entire area around it was packed with people who had also come for the once-a-decade Passion Play. And… we couldn’t get in. We had taken the long journey to Oberammergau and we couldn’t fit in the church. We sat outside in the square and hoped that we would get a little of the legendary magic by osmosis. The sun set and the stars appeared, and we finally decided we should find a place to sleep. We went to the local hostel, but I didn’t want to spend the money. We made a plan that Tanya would get a bed and then she’d sneak me in through a window and we’d share a bed.
Once I was outside, however, I decided I wanted to sleep by the river. The smell of the pine trees, the sound of the river, the mossy stones nearby, the blanket of stars… it all felt like home. The temperature dropped in the night, and my blanket made of starlight wasn’t quite warm enough. I piled all my clothes on top of me. It seems I should have worried about hungry wild animals, but I didn’t. I remember waking up in the morning to the sound of happy birds and the rush of the river and the sun softly shining through trees and thinking, am I home? I looked around, touched my heart and sighed. Yes I was.
