What are some interesting things about Bayern, Germany? Like the people, places, food, history, background,etc

Question

I have to do a project in German about Bayern and everytime I look it up its just talking about sports... what are some REALLY INTERESTING things about Bayern?

Answer 1

Bayern is the biggest federal state of Germany, quite deep in the south, bordering Austria and Italy (well, there's the Alpes in between), and the Czech Republic. So Bavaria is something quite special: Besides Saxonia ("Sachsen" in German) it is the only state that has its own constitution, subject to federal law, but it's still there.

You can read about the history and background in the Wikipedia; I won't go into details as to that.

As to food, Bavarians don't eat Sauerkraut and Weißwurst every day. As a matter of fact, most younger people reject that kind of traditional food, and prefer McDonalds or BurgerKing. Knowing how to drive a car, however, is supposed to be normal in Bavaria, and as soon as you are 18 (the legal age for driving in Germany), everybody has a license from god-knows-where, and car accidents among younger people are rampant here.

As Bavaria has so much different landscapes, it's hard to give an overview. Most people identify Bayern with "Oberbayern" (upper Bavaria), that's the region around Munich, but that's only half the truth. Maybe a look at the map can help you differentiate between several types of Bavarians; but there's one thing that unifies them all: They love Italian food, and we got the "real stuff" here, as we had a lot of Italian immigrants as workers here after WWII, and they and their descendants were meant to stay. Strangely, though, while Italy is the most preffered vacation country for Bavarians, only a few of them speak Italian at an understandable level, and Italian isn't taught in public schools.

If you have any SPECIFIC questions, please don't hesitate to mail; I can't sum up all that makes Bavaria in a few sentences.