Sights in Munich
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Deutsches Museum
If you’re one of those people for whom science is an unfathomable turn off, a visit to the Deutsches Museum might just show you that physics and engineering are more fun than you thought. Spending a few hours in this temple to technology is an eye-opening journey of discovery and the exhibitions and demonstrations will certainly be a hit with young minds.
There are tons of interactive displays (including glass blowing and paper-making), live demonstrations and experiments, model coal and salt mines, and engaging sections on cave paintings, geodesy, microelectronics and astronomy. In fact, it can be pretty overwhelming after a while, so it's best to prioritise what you…
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Münchner Stadtmuseum
Installed for the city's 850th birthday in 2008, the Typisch München (Typical Munich) exhibition at this unmissable museum tells Munich's story in an imaginative, uncluttered and engaging way. Taking up the whole of a rambling building, exhibits in each section represent something quintessential about the city; a booklet/audioguide relates the tale behind them, thus condensing a long and tangled history into easily digestible themes.
Set out in chronological order, the exhibition kicks off with the founding monks and ends in the post-war boom decades. The first of five sections, Old Munich, contains a scale model of the city in the late 16th century (one of five…
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Leopoldstrasse
Grab a table in a street-side café on Leopoldstrasse and watch the world on parade. What do you see? Bronzed lotharios in deep-buttoned white shirts. Faux blondes in tiny tees. Teens in tight premium jeans. Chic mamas walking designer dogs. Yup, no matter what you've heard or read, Schwabing's reputation as a boho stronghold of artists and students is a thing of the past.
Fact is, Schwabing is thoroughly gentrified, has some of the highest rents in town and is populated by lawyers, editors, professors and trust fund babies in beemers.
Some live in beautifully restored Jugendstil (Art Nouveau) buildings along such streets as Ainmillerstrasse and Gedonstrasse. Through it…
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Frauenkirche
The landmark Frauenkirche, built between 1468 and 1488, is Munich's spiritual heart and the Mt Everest among its churches. No other building in the central city may stand taller than its onion-domed twin towers, which reach a sky-scraping 99m. From April to October, you can enjoy panoramic city views from the south tower.
Bombed to bits in WWII, the reconstruction is a soaring passage of light but otherwise fairly spartan. Of note is the epic cenotaph (empty tomb) of Ludwig the Bavarian just past the entrance and the bronze plaques of Pope Benedict XVI and his predecessor John Paul II affixed to nearby pillars.
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Marienplatz
The heart and soul of the Altstadt, Marienplatz, is a popular gathering spot and packs a lot of personality into its relatively small frame. It's anchored by the Mariensäule (Mary's Column), built in 1638 to celebrate victory over Swedish forces during the Thirty Years' War; it's topped by a golden statue of the Virgin Mary balancing on a crescent moon.
At 11:00 and noon (also 17:00 March to October), the square jams up with tourists craning their necks to take in the animated Glockenspiel (carillon) in the Neues Rathaus (New Town Hall), a neo-Gothic fantasy festooned with gargoyles, statues and a dragon scaling the turrets; the tourist office is on the ground floor. For…
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Maximilianstrasse
It's pricey and pretentious, but no trip to Munich would be complete without a saunter down Maximilianstrasse, one of the city's grandest boulevards. Starting at Max-Joseph-Platz, it's a 1km-long ribbon of style where sample-size fembots browse for Escada and Prada, and suits sip champagne in pavement cafés, with nary a hair out of place. Several of Munich's finest theatrical venues, including the Nationaltheater, the Kammerspiele and the Kleine Komödie am Max II are also here.
Built between 1852 and 1875, Maximilianstrasse was essentially an ego trip of King Max II. He harnessed the skills of architect Friedrich von Bürklein to create a unique stylistic hotchpotch…
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Hofgarten
Office workers catching some rays during their lunch break, stylish mothers pushing prams, seniors on bikes, a gaggle of chatty nuns – everybody comes to the Hofgarten. The formal court gardens with fountains, radiant flower beds, lime-tree–lined gravel paths and benches galore sits just north of the Residenz. Paths converge at the Dianatempel, a striking octagonal pavilion honouring the Roman goddess of the hunt.
Bavaria's governor keeps his office in the humongous Bayerische Staatskanzlei, which takes up the entire eastern flank of the Hofgarten. It's a strikingly modern glass palace built around the restored centre section of the Army Museum that for years stood…
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Englischer Garten
The sprawling English Garden is among Europe's biggest city parks – bigger than even London's Hyde Park and New York's Central Park and a favourite playground for locals and visitors alike. Stretching north from Prinzregentenstrasse for about 5km, it was commissioned by Elector Karl Theodor in 1789 and designed by Benjamin Thompson, an American-born scientist working as an advisor to the Bavarian government.
Paths piddle around in dark stands of mature oak and maple before emerging into sunlit meadows of lush grass. Locals are mindful of its popularity and tolerate the close quarters of bicyclists, walkers and joggers. Street musicians dodge balls kicked by frolicking…
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Schloss Nymphenburg Gardens
The sprawling park behind Schloss Nymphenburg is a favourite spot with Münchners and visitors for strolling, jogging or whiling away a lazy afternoon. It's laid out in grand English style and accented with water features, including a large lake, a cascade and a canal popular for feeding swans, and ice-skating and ice-curling when it freezes over in winter.
The park is at its most magical without the masses, ie early in the morning and an hour before closing. But even in the daytime, you can usually commune in solitude with waterlilies and singing frogs at the Kugelweiher pond in the far northern corner.
The park's chief folly - and quite frilly to boot - the Amalienburg…
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Bavaria FilmStadt
Movie magic is the draw of the Bavaria Filmstadt, a theme park built around Bavaria Film, one of Germany's oldest studios, founded in 1919. The top-grossing German film of all time, Das Boot, was among the classics shot here but today's German audience is more interested in sets of the family soap Marienhof.
Films and TV are still produced today, and who knows, you might see a star during the guided 90-minute tours. The 1pm tour is in English.
The crash-and-burn Stunt Show is a runaway hit as well, while kids are particularly fond of the wacky 4D cinema, with seats that lurch and other special effects from silly to spooky. The Filmstadt is in the southern suburb of…
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BMW Welt
The lucky ones get to drive away with their dream car, for BMW Welt is first and foremost a car pick-up centre. Everyone else can admire the latest models, straddle a powerful motorbike, browse the 'lifestyle shop' or take a guided 80-minute tour. On the Junior Campus, kids learn about mobility, fancy themselves car engineers and even get to design their own vehicle in workshops. Classical and jazz concerts, many of them free, take place year-round. Sure, it's all a brilliant PR ploy, but let's not get too cynical...
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Olympic Park
Built for the 1972 Olympic Games, Munich's Olympic Park remains an important part of life in the city. The park's lofty centrepiece is the 290m-high Olympia Tower, and the architecturally gargantuan 75,000-sq-m transparent 'tented' roof covering the Olympic Stadium is also impressive.
In the 19th century the site was a practice field for royal riders; in 1909, the first Zeppelin airship landed here; and in 1929, it became the site of Munich's first civil airport.
Today the Olympic complex is open as a collection of public facilities, and the grounds play host to numerous celebrations, concerts, fireworks displays and professional sporting matches throughout the year.
If…
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Feldherrnhalle
Corking up Odeonsplatz's south side is Friedrich von Gärnter's Feldherrnhalle, modelled on the Loggia dei Lanzi in Florence. It honours the Bavarian army and positively drips with testosterone; check out the statues of General Johann Tilly, who kicked the Swedes out of Munich during the Thirty Years' War; and Karl Phillip von Wrede, an ally turned foe of Napoleon.
It was here on 9 November 1923 that police stopped the so-called Beer Hall Putsch, Hitler's attempt to bring down the Weimar Republic. A fierce skirmish left 20 people, including 16 Nazis, dead. A plaque in the pavement of the square's eastern side commemorates the police officers who perished in the incident.
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Museum Villa Stuck
Franz von Stuck was a leading light in Munich's art scene around the turn of the 20th century and his residence is one of the finest Jugendstil homes you'll ever see. Stuck came up with the intricate design, which forges tapestries, patterned floors, coffered ceilings and other elements into a harmonious work of art. Today his pad is open as a museum with changing exhibitions.
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Alte Pinakothek
Munich's main repository of Old European Masters is crammed with all the major players that decorated canvases between the 14th and 18th centuries. This neoclassical temple was masterminded by Leo von Klenze and is a delicacy even if you can't tell your Rembrandt from your Rubens. Nearly all the paintings were collected or commissioned by Wittelsbach rulers; it fell to Ludwig I to unite them in a single museum.
The collection is world famous for its exceptional quality and depth, especially when it comes to German masters. The oldest works are altar paintings, of which the Four Church Fathers by Michael Pacher and Lucas Cranach the Elder's Crucifixion (1503), an emotional…
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Fünf Höfe
Munich usually feels more cosy than cosmopolitan, but one exception is the Fünf Höfe, a ritzy shopping arcade whose modernist design is as interesting as the fancy flagship and concept stores lining its passageways. The building also houses the Kunsthalle der Hypo-Kulturstiftung an art space with high-calibre changing installations. Entrances to the Fünf Höfe are on Theatinerstrasse, Salvatorstrasse, Maffeistrasse and Kardinal-Faulhaber-Strasse.
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Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität
Bavaria's oldest university, the Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität started out as political football for its rulers. Founded in Ingolstadt in 1472, it moved to Landshut in 1800 before being lassoed to Munich in 1826 by newly crowned King Ludwig I. It has produced more than a dozen Nobel Prize winners, including Wilhelm Röntgen in 1901 and Theodor Hiersch in 2005.
The main building, by Friedrich von Gärtner of course, has cathedral-like dimensions and is accented with sculpture and other art work. A flight of stairs leads to a light court with a memorial to Die Weisse Rose, the Nazi resistance group founded by Hans and Sophie Scholl. To get the full story visit the small …
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Altes Rathaus
The eastern side of Marienplatz is dominated by the Altes Rathaus. Lightning got the better of the medieval original in 1460 and WWII bombs levelled its successor, so what you see is really the third incarnation of the building designed by Jörg von Halspach of Frauenkirche fame. On 9 November 1938 Joseph Goebbels gave a hate-filled speech here that launched the nationwide Kristallnacht pogroms.
Today it houses the adorable Spielzeugmuseum (Toy Museum) with its huge collection of rare and precious toys from throughout Europe and the US. Also, on the old town hall's south side you can pay your respects to Romeo's heart-throb Juliet, a beautiful bronze sculpture that was a…
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Schloss
The main palace building consists of a large villa and two wings of creaking parquet floors and sumptuous period rooms. Right at the beginning comes the highpoint of the entire Schloss, the Schönheitengalerie (Gallery of Beauties), housed in the former apartments of Queen Caroline. Some 38 portraits of beautiful women chosen by an admiring King Ludwig I peer prettily from the walls. The most famous is of Helene Sedlmayr, the daughter of a shoemaker, wearing a lavish frock the king gave her for the sitting. You'll also find Ludwig's beautiful but notorious lover, Lola Montez, as well as 19th-century gossip-column celebrity, Jane Lady Ellenborough, and English beauty Lady…
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Residenz
The Residenz is a suitably grand palace that reflects the splendour and power of the Wittelsbach clan, the Bavarian rulers who lived here from 1385 to 1918. The edifice dwarfs Max-Joseph-Platz along with the grandiose Nationaltheater, home to the Bavarian State Opera. Its museums are among the jewels in Munich's cultural crown and an unmissable part of the Bavarian experience.
Four giant bronze lion statues guard the entrance to the palace on Residenzstrasse, supported by pedestals festooned with a half-human, half-animal face. Note the creatures' remarkably shiny noses. If you wait a moment, you'll see the reason for the sheen: scores of people walk by and casually rub…
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Allianz Arena
Sporting and architecture fans alike should take a side trip to the northern suburb of Fröttmaning to see the ultraslick €340 million Allianz Arena, Munich's dramatic football stadium. The 75-minute stadium tours are hugely popular (no tours on match days); tickets are sold in the 3rd-floor gift shop.
Nicknamed the life belt and rubber boat, it has walls made of inflatable cushions that can be individually lit to match the colours of the host team (red for 1 FC Bayern, blue for TSV 1860, and white for the national side).
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walk on the roof
Don't have time to make it to the Alps for climbing around lofty heights? No sweat. Just head to the Olympic Stadium for a walk on the roof . Yup, the roof; that famously contorted steel and plexiglass confection is ready for its close-up. Just like on the mountains, you'll be roped and hooked up to a steel cable as you clamber around under the eagle-eyed supervision of an experienced guide showering you with fascinating details about the stadium's architecture and construction. Unusual perspectives are guaranteed, but the vertigo-prone might want to take a pass on this one. Minimum age is 10 and expeditions last two hours. Wear rubber-soled shoes.
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Neues Rathaus
The coal-blackened façade of the neo-Gothic Neues Rathaus, New Town Hall, is festooned with gargoyles and statues, including a dragon scaling the turrets. Inside, six grand courtyards host festivals and concerts throughout the year. For a good view of the city, ascend the 85m tower.
The highlight of the building is the Glockenspiel (carillon). Note the three levels: two portraying the Schäfflertanz and another the Ritterturnier, a knights' tournament held in 1568 to celebrate a royal marriage. The night scene featuring the Münchener Kindl (a girl in a monk's robe) and Nachtwächter (night watchman) runs at 21:00.
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Justizpalast
The 1890s Justizpalast witnessed the Weisse Rose trial of Hans Scholl, Sophie Scholl and Christoph Probst on 22 February 1943. They were condemned to death by the notorious judge Roland Freisler. The verdict was read at 1pm. Four hours later they were dead. There's a permanent exhibit about the sham trial in the very courtroom (room 253) where it took place.
A second courthouse, the Neuer Justizpalast (New Palace of Justice) was built just a few years later and is more of a neo-Gothic confection.
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Asamkirche
Though pocket-sized, the late baroque Asamkirche, built in 1746, is as rich and epic as a giant's treasure chest. Its creators, the brothers Cosmas Damian and Egid Quirin, dipped deeply into their considerable talent box to swathe every inch of wall space with paintings, putti (cherubs), gold leaf and stucco flourishes.
The crowning glory is the ceiling fresco illustrating the life of St John Nepomuk to whom the church is dedicated (lie down on your back in a pew to fully appreciate the complicated perspective). The brothers lived next door and this was originally their private chapel; the main altar could be seen through a window from their home.
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