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Man loses car for five weeks at Oktoberfest

Alex Evans
Alex Evans - [email protected]
Man loses car for five weeks at Oktoberfest
The crowds in Munich's Theresienwiese on the opening day of Oktoberfest this year. Photo:DPA

An Italian man who forgot where he parked his car during a visit to Munich’s Oktoberfest has finally got it back – but only after five weeks, three trips to the city and a local newspaper campaign.

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The 40-year-old, named as Andreas O., left his silver VW Golf in a side-street, near a tram stop, before hurrying to get a tram to the Theresienwiese where the Oktoberfest is held.

But after a day of beer, roast ox and folk music, the factory worker realized he had forgotten the names of both the street and the tram stop – and had no idea where his vehicle could be.

With eight different entrances to the Oktoberfest grounds and numerous train stations around the town centre where he might have parked, he could not remember how he had entered the site.

He suspected it might have been either the number 16 or 17 tram line, he told the city's Abendzeitung newspaper.

He said: "I rode all the way along both lines looking down every side-street and found nothing."

The festival's famous beer was not his downfall, according to Andreas. "I didn't come to drink. I came for the rides," he said.

He hung posters around the city offering a €200 reward to anyone who could help him find the car but to no avail.

With nothing but "somewhere in east Munich" to go on, police could only promise to keep an eye out for the Volkswagen while on the beat.

But Andreas' case is not unique, police spokesman Christoph Reichenbach told the Abendzeitung. "We get this sort of thing all the time," he said.

After making three trips back to Munich over almost five weeks from his home in Bolzano, South Tirol, searching in vain for the lost car, the driver finally got good news from the Abendzeitung's appeal on his behalf.

One of the paper's readers spotted his car and the Italian was finally able to collect it on Friday.

He told the Abendzeitung: "I was absolutely thrilled."

READ MORE: The Oktoberfest bill - €67 million on beer, 114 oxen and a lost Segway

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