World Hum | Travel | Surfing the Eisbach: California Culture in Bavaria

Travel dispatches from a shrinking planet

Cheesy Souvenirs + Famous Landmarks = Very Cool Travel Pics

Greyhound Canada (and Its Passengers) Can’t Catch a Break

The Paris Greeters: Helping Dispell Notions of ‘Inhospitable Locals’

Forget About Having a ‘G’Day, Mite’

Vagrant Ruminations of a Compulsive Traveler

Where does the urge to hunt for that “fleeting fix of elsewhere” come from? Peter Wortsman recalls a life of travel inspiration.

Rolf Potts: Revelations from a Postmodern Travel Writer

His new book “Marco Polo Didn’t Go There” includes his best stories from the past 10 years. Michael Yessis asks him how travel writing has changed in the last decade—and what he sees for the future.

AUDIO SLIDESHOW

Notes From an Unofficial Tourist Greeter

Summer is over, and so is Julia Ross‘ season as an ambassador to travelers in Washington, D.C.’s Woodley Park neighborhood. She’s happy to be off duty.

THE LIST

10 Great Travel Race Movies

Slow travel is well and good. But there’s something irresistible about a great travel race movie. World Hum Travel Movie Clubbers Eva Holland and Eli Ellison share their favorite vicarious thrill rides.

HOW TO

Eat Ceviche in Lima

Grab a Cusque�a and get comfortable. As Nicholas Gill explains, a trip to a Peruvian cevicher�a can be an all-day immersion in good conversation and raw seafood.

ASK ROLF

How Should I Spend My Time in Spain?

Vagabonding traveler Rolf Potts answers your questions about travel

BOOKS

Unsentimental Journeys: Wrestling With Paul Theroux

Bronwen Dickey considers “Ghost Train to the Eastern Star: 28,000 Miles in Search of the Great Railway Bazaar”

TRAVEL BLOG

1.14.08

Surfing the Eisbach: California Culture in Bavaria

You don’t have to be near Mavericks, or even an ocean, to enjoy some wild surfing action. Surfers have been riding waves in rivers for years—the Amazon’s Pororoca in Brazil just might be the most dramatic example. But there are options in Europe, too. The Atlantic magazine recently covered surfing Munich’s Eisbach, a tributary of the Isar River where a standing wave has “created an enclave of borrowed California culture in the heart of Bavaria.”

Reports the magazine (a short excerpt is available to non-subscribers):

Europe has always had a love-hate relationship with America, and the paradox of the surf scene here is that it’s a grassroots movement of the Volk, against German officialdom, to make room for something decidedly un-German—a Polynesian sport in an American pop-culture mode. This doesn’t mean the surfers want to be American. One German surfer told me the Flossl�nde crowds were fine during the contest, but obnoxious during Oktoberfest, when their numbers swell with foreigners. “All these Americans and Australians stay in the campground over there,” she said, pointing beyond the bridge. “Then they see the wave and want to try it out.”

YouTube has video of the Eisbach, sans obnoxious Oktoberfest-goers but with obnoxious intro music:

As for surfing the Amazon, YouTube has a compelling movie trailer:

Related on World Hum:
* The Enduring Appeal of ‘The Endless Summer’

Photo of surfers in Munich by Goetz A. Primke, via Flickr, (Creative Commons).

Posted by Jim Benning • 1.14.08
Categories: Weblog • Audio/Video • Brazil • Germany • Outdoors

Permalink • Comments (3)

COMMENTS

The surf culture at the Eisbach is really a sight to see - particularly to watch these urban shredders pulling on their wetsuits in front of Audis parked on the busy city street(right there in downtown Munich) overlooking the wave.

By on 1.14.08 at 11:20 AM

Hi,
thanks a lot for using my picture from my Flickr Account. This is very nice of you. But it would be fair of you to link it directly to my Flickr picks. And to name me with my copyright correctly.
Cheers,
Goetz A. Primke
http://www.legourmand.de/

By Goetz A. Primke on 6.5.08 at 10:15 AM

everyone could go to Costa Rica for a s surf secion, the two shores have small distance betwen them.
It’s amazing where there are so many surfspots and without having suels. locals are very friendly and in 8 days can go to more than 13 different beaches where you can surf

By costa rica surf on 7.25.08 at 11:52 AM