Michael Kater, Managing Director, Compass Tours, in conversation with Annie Fitzsimmons from AFAR Media.
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TravelTranscript
00:00 Okay, I am so excited to be here today.
00:06 Thank you so much, Michael, for being with us.
00:08 Michael, is it clear?
00:09 Thank you so much for the invitation.
00:10 Cotter?
00:11 Sorry.
00:12 Yeah, Cotter, Cotter.
00:13 It's good.
00:14 Cotter.
00:15 Okay, Michael Cotter, CEO and owner of Pompous Tours, who is based in Munich.
00:18 So again, thank you very much for taking the time.
00:20 And I would love it if you could just give kind of a brief overview of your background.
00:25 You of course know Germany really well, but better coming from you.
00:28 Yeah, thank you so much, Annie.
00:31 Again, thanks for the invitation here.
00:34 My name is Michael Cotter.
00:35 I'm the managing partner of Pompous Tours Incoming and Unique Germany.
00:40 Both are DMCs in Germany.
00:43 We're talking in December and of course Christmas markets are always going to be a reason that
00:47 people book trips to Germany.
00:50 But why do you think travelers love the German market so much?
00:54 Yeah, I mean, of course, you know, the Christmas markets are very much missed this year.
01:01 And also, I have to admit me personally missing that.
01:06 And I think it's it stands for, you know, for the German gemütlichkeit, for the coziness.
01:14 You have that muck of hot red mulled wine, the Glühwein, and you listen to the Christmas
01:21 songs.
01:22 And I mean, just talking about that, I can feel the cinnamon in the air.
01:30 And you have the stalls and the lights and all that, you know, and it gets dark and then
01:35 they switch on the lights, etc.
01:37 Do you think is there something that you buy at Christmas markets every year?
01:42 You mean something special I buy?
01:44 Oh, yes, of course.
01:46 I mean, first, of course, we have to talk about the Glühwein again.
01:49 You know, I mean, this is Glühwein is the key to the entire experience.
01:57 And traditionally, of course, people drink the red one.
02:01 I mean, you have red and white, right?
02:03 So people just drink, usually they just drink the red one.
02:06 And my suggestion is to really go for the white one.
02:11 The white one usually has much less sugar, less headache.
02:16 It's sweet, but it's not that, you know, it's not that drastical sweet.
02:28 So really go for that one.
02:30 Then there is also something what is called Feuerzangenbohle.
02:34 It's so hard to explain.
02:38 It's a red wine punch, similar to Glühwein.
02:44 Just try it once.
02:46 Don't drink more than one because it contains much, much more alcohol.
02:51 So, you know, just try it a little, just one and then go back to the Glühwein.
02:56 And on the food side, I would say the roasted almonds are a classical thing.
03:05 And I would always suggest look for those stalls who roast the almonds on site.
03:12 And you can, I mean, you usually you smell that and you can see that it's rotating thing
03:18 where and you can see it and smell it, etc.
03:21 And then, of course, finally, more for the hearty side, the bratwurst.
03:27 I mean, it's a cliche, but really, I mean, this for me is going to the Christmas market.
03:34 I usually I walk with my family once around or through the entire market.
03:41 And I have a look on the stalls.
03:43 And then on the second round, then I decide, OK, now we have a bratwurst there or we have
03:48 a Glühwein there.
03:49 You look at everything, you check it out.
03:55 I usually have two bratwurst per market.
03:58 That's a great tip.
04:01 Two bratwurst per market.
04:03 I like that.
04:04 No, I think I totally agree with everything you're saying.
04:06 And I didn't even actually know I've only had red Glühwein.
04:10 So I need to have the white one.
04:12 That's yeah, absolutely.
04:14 Are there any particular markets that are your favorites or do you?
04:20 Yeah, well, there are several ones in Heidelberg is one which is which is really great.
04:31 But I have to talk about Heidelberg later on.
04:38 In Erfurt, the Christmas market has a tradition of I think of more than 150 years.
04:45 So that's something what you definitely should not miss.
04:53 And then there is in Würzburg and Wiesbaden and the one in Rostock, especially in the
05:04 north.
05:05 So whenever you think about Rostock is also close to Lübeck.
05:09 And this is a great combination.
05:12 And this is something what definitely makes sense.
05:15 But there's one on my list I have not done yet in Osnabrück.
05:21 Osnabrück has the largest how they call it a Christmas music box.
05:29 The small ones are about that size and you put them on the table and you put a candle
05:34 and then it rotates a little bit through the hot air.
05:39 And they have the world's largest music box.
05:42 I don't know how many meters.
05:46 And that's on my to do list for I mean, I had it for this year, but unfortunately, this
05:50 is not not working out.
05:53 But I have it on my list for next year.
05:55 I want to go.
05:58 That's actually I didn't know about that.
05:59 Very cool.
06:00 Well, so I mean, of course, you love getting off the beaten path in Germany, where you
06:04 live in Munich and of course, from popular cities like Berlin.
06:07 So do you I mean, do you keep a running list of things you want to do or how do you keep
06:10 track of that?
06:13 Just talking about Augsburg, Augsburg is the home of the Fugger family.
06:20 And the Fugger family was the world richest family in the in the Middle Ages.
06:28 They built an incredible empire just on on on business, just on business.
06:36 And they tried to the amount of money they had or the gold they tried to convert what
06:41 it would mean.
06:44 I mean, you know, in this in in our years, but they failed because it would I mean, it
06:49 would be much more than Bill Gates has or whatever.
06:53 And the family is still there.
06:54 I mean, they still have I mean, they are not any longer the world richest family, but they
06:59 over these centuries, they have built great buildings.
07:04 And so this is really something what I would recommend.
07:11 And the film studios in Babelsberg, which is in Potsdam, is close to Berlin.
07:19 Definitely makes sense to combine that.
07:22 Potsdam itself is very nice.
07:24 And I've been there lots of times already.
07:27 Whenever I'm in Berlin, I try to combine that.
07:30 But I never made it into that film studio, which is Europe's oldest and still largest
07:38 film studio.
07:39 So they have incredible, how do you call it?
07:42 I mean, artificial streets and house walls and all that.
07:47 And finally, on my list in Bonn, the former capital of Germany, they have something like
07:58 they call it Haus der Geschichte, the house of German history.
08:03 And, you know, when I tell that to my to my kids, I mean, I can hear them already saying,
08:10 oh, this sounds quite boring.
08:12 But it's not.
08:13 It's far from boring.
08:15 It's about the history after 1945.
08:18 Until the I mean, more or less until today.
08:21 Yeah. And it's it's very lively.
08:24 It's very interactive.
08:25 It's about the 50s, 60s.
08:28 You see entire living rooms, how they how they looked in the past, about how was Germany
08:35 in the 70s, you know, when all the student riots came up, et cetera.
08:38 How was it in the 80s, et cetera?
08:40 And I never I for whatever reason, I miss that museum so far.
08:45 And this is something what I have on my list as well.
08:48 Well, the good thing is, I mean, I feel like the more places that you add to your list,
08:52 the bigger the world gets.
08:53 You don't check things off, you find other things.
08:57 Right. So I think that's true.
09:00 Because this will be over one day and we will be back at Christmas markets.
09:05 Thank you so much for joining us.
09:08 I really appreciate it.
09:09 And thank you so much for your time.
09:11 Yes. Inside look at Germany, which I'm ready to go again.
09:16 Thank you so much. Thank you.
09:17 Bye bye. Bye bye.
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09:26 Bye bye.
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