Things to do in Munich
There are so many things to do in Munich, so we’ve put together this little guide! It will illustrate everything you need to know from travelling from the airport into the City, a rundown of all the core attractions to some ideas on places to visit outside of Munich.
How to get into the City
The airport is quite far from the City Centre, roughly 40 kilometres, so you have three main options to get into Munich from the airport, a taxi, bus or train.
The train and bus are both cheap and quick and the former runs for 22 hours each day, so most visitors will use the metro. Both S1 and S8 lines will get you into the city centre but S8 is considerably faster and expect one every 10 minutes.
- Metro – S8 (S1 also available) – takes 38 minutes and costs 11 Euros
- Taxi – it takes 45 minutes and costs 70 Euros
- Lufthansa Bus – it takes 45 minutes and costs 10.5 Euros
Once in Munich the metro is extensive and will cover almost every inch of the city you need to visit. The S Bhan are the regional trains that connect the city to the outlying areas, like the airport, whilst the U-bhan is the metro serving the city centre.
As you can see, divided into zones with M being the city centre and costs will depend on how many zones you cross.
Single tickets can be purchased from the ticket machines and will be time stamped so no need to validate before you travel. Trips within zone M cost 3.30 Euros and increase steadily as you cross the zones. Children aged between 6-14 cost 1.50 euro regardless of zones and under 6 are free.
Day tickets are also available and are very reasonable such as unlimited travel within zone M for 7.80 Euros.
It’s worth stressing that the city also has a fantastic tram network, that’s integrated so the costs already detailed for the S and U Bahn apply to the trams too.
Things to Do in Munich
There’s so many places to visit in Munich so here’s our condensed list of our top things to do in the city.
- MarienPlatz
MarienPlatz (Or Mary’s Square) is the best place to start any trip to Munich. The central square has been around since 1158. The symbols of the square are the two towering city halls, the old town hall and the new town hall, both of which overlook the square.
At its centre you’ll find the Marian Column, a statue of the virgin Mary erected in 1638 to celebrate the end of the Swedish occupation during the 30 years war.
Both town halls are now occupied by ministerial and local government offices but you can visit the new town hall and take a trip up to the observation deck giving you a great view of the city. It costs 4 Euros for an Adult and only 1 Euro for children between 6 and 17.
The square is probably one of the easiest places to find in Munich, it sits on a cross section of many lines on the U and S Bhan and tram 18 will also stop there.
- The English Garden
Every great city has a great park and you don’t get much better than the English Garden in Munich. It was created in 1789 by an American called Benjamin Thompson who as the name of his park suggests, was a bit of an Anglophile having fought as a Loyalist during the war of independence in America. The park is enormous and has plenty to do from beer gardens, Japanese tea houses and even surfing.
Aas you’d expect it’s flanked by tram and metro stops, so is very easy to get to and within the park you have plenty of café’s and restaurants for food and drink but it’s also a fabulous place for a picnic and to soak up the sun when the weather’s nice.
Hofbräuhaus am Platzl is regularly touted as the most famous tavern in the world and a real institution of the city
The history of this beerhall goes all the way back to the late 1500’s and Hofbrauhaus is itself a royal brewery and is therefore owned by the Bavarian state. It’s a brilliant place to visit, grab yourself one of their renowned litre glass of beer and glug it down with some Bavarian pretzels.
It’s open every day of the year from 9am to midnight and is located right in the middle of the city, a few minutes walk from Marienplatz.
The Olympic Park in Munich was built for the games of 1972 and many of the buildings are still used today for various cultural and sporting events but the main attraction there for tourists is the Olympic tower.
It’s viewing platform stands 190 meters up in the air and the lift takes a mere 30 seconds to whisk you up there. The platform revolves and unsurprisingly there’s a restaurant on offer, providing fine dining with a first class view over Munich.
It’s located to the north of the city and can be accessed easily using the U-Bhan as it has its own stop Olympiazentrum. Open every day from 9am to midnight and Adults cost 9 Euros, children aged between 6-16 cost 6 Euros and under 6 are free.
Dachau is a lovely little Bavarian town to the West of Munich, only about 10 miles away from the city centre but unfortunately this medieval town will forever be associated with the now infamous concentration camp that was built there back in 1933.
It was actually the first Nazi concentration camp built and it operated right up until it was liberated by US forces in April of 1945. Over 30,000 people lost their lives at Dachau and today it acts a permanent reminder of the horrors many had to live through during those years.
Entrance is free and easy to travel there from Munich using the S-Bhan. Take S2 line north to Dachau, which will take about 20 minutes and once at Dachau, you’ll be able to grab bus 726 that will take you to the entrance of the camp which takes a further 10 minutes.
It’s all very well signposted and it’s better to buy a single day ticket from Munich as that will cover all bus and train fares to and from the city.
Every major European city has its own spectacular Palace, in Munich, they have Nympenburg and it’s one of the top things to see during a visit.
The Palace was the main summer residence of the Bavarian rulers of the late 1600’s and the palace is enormous, particularly the famous wide frontal part of the palace stretching an impressive 600 meters across.
Tram 17 will get you there if you get off at stop Schloss Nymphenburg and you can then visit the palace for 8 Euros and under 18’s are free. Alternatively, just admire the building from the outside and make use of the enormous park that surrounds it, which is free to explore.
- Munich Beer Gardens
Munich is synonymous with beer and for good reason; it’s the birthplace of the world famous yearly Octoberfest, but also more impressively the official birthplace of the much loved beer garden. You’ll find them scattered throughout the city and they’re of epic proportions, most able to seat thousands of drinkers.
There are plenty to choose from but notable gardens that usually appear on the top of most lists are the Biergarten Hirschgarten, close to the Nymphenburg palace, the 7000 capacity Augustiner Keller Biergarten, one of the oldest in the city and there’s an equally large great beer garden right in the middle of the English garden by the Chinese tower.
With so many sights to see and so many beer gardens to sample, you might want to consider the hop on hop off bus as a great way to see the city from up high and a convenient way to travel to each attraction we’ve mentioned so far in this guide.
There are three routes on offer and you can decide to just ride the city tour red line or ride all three (Red, Blue and purple) over 1 or 2 days. Each line takes 60 minutes to get all the way around and generally the tours run every day between 10am and 5pm.
Expect to pay around 20 Euros for an adult for all lines for one day and 10 Euros for a child between the ages of 5 and 15 whilst under 5’s are free.
Day Trips Outside of Munich
There’s so many things to do in Munich that most tourists won’t need to leave the city limits but for those that do fancy a day trip to somewhere a little different, then both Salzburg and the famous Neuschwanstein Caste are well worth a visit.
Salzburg
Salzburg is famous for two things, it’s the birthplace of Mozart and the setting for the famous sound of music movie so if you like either or both, you’ll love Austria’s 4th largest city.
With its baroque architecture and scenic alpine backdrop it’s a beautiful city to explore, not least it’s famous medieval fortress that’s perched above the city keeping a watchful eye on everything. The centre of the town is a world heritage site and there’s plenty to see and do to keep you busy for the day.
Salzburg lies 150km to the East of Munich and can be accessed via car and train in about 1.5 hours. Trains run frequently between the two cities and a return journey shouldn’t cost any more than 40 Euros.
Neuschwanstein Caste
Forget Disney, Bavaria has a real life fairytale castle and it’s very much on the tourist trail, so expect large crowds particularly in the summer. It was built in the 1800’s by Ludwig II to honour the famous German composer Richard Wagner and built in an architectural category called castle romanticism.
Anyone is free to walk up to the castle and explore the grounds around its base but you’ll need to order tickets online, well in advance, if you’d like to go inside.
Given its location it’s obviously not the simplest of places to get to. From Munich the most convenient way to get there would be to hire a car or book a day trip as by road it’s only around 90 minutes away whilst public transport will take far longer and involve many changes of trains and busses.
Once you arrive you can either brave the 40 minute walk from the ticket office up very steep terrain to the castle entrance, take a horse drawn cart most of the way for 7 euros up and 3.5 down or get the shuttle bus for 2.5 euros up and 1.50 down. A ticket to visit inside the castle costs 13 euros and under 18’s are free.
What to Eat
Bavaria and Munich are heavily associated with beer, but for those that want to sample some of their dishes, then don’t leave without trying some of these local delicacies:
- Weisswurst – Bavarian white sausage made with veal and pork served in a bowl of warm water
- Münchner Schnitzel (Munich schnitzel) – variation of the Austrian Wiener Schnitzel prepared with horseradish and or mustard.
- Pretzels (Breze) – this famed german pastry has roots in Munich and best served with a beer!
Things to Do in Munich with Kids
We’ve travelled extensively with our kids and appreciate the need to find suitable activities for the little ones, as it’s invariably their holiday too, so in Munich we’d recommend the city Zoo, the Duetsches Museum and the sea life centre.
The Hellabrunn zoo was first founded in 1911 and boasts at being the first geo zoo, that is a zoo that attempts to recreate the true habitats of the animals it houses making it more of a nature reserve with larger enclosures than a more traditional zoo. They have an incredible variety of animals from all continents and various activities and interactions throughout the day.
Easily found a few minutes walk from the U3 metro stop Thalkirchen (Tierpark) and open all year round from about 9am to 4pm. Adults pay 15 Euros, Children between 4 and 14 pay only 6 Euros and under 4’s are free.
Deutsches Museum
The Deutsches museum is the world’s largest museum of science and technology and accepts over 1.5 million visitors a year. It’s well over a hundred years old and covers every science and tech specialism you can imagine.
The museum also has a Kids kingdom, designed for children aged between 3 to 8, full of hands on activities and interactive displays that will keep the little ones amused whilst learning at the same time.
It’s incredibly central, only a kilometre from Marienplatz and sits on its own island. There are S and U bhan metro stops nearby but the most direct way to get there on public transport is by tram on line 16 that will take you directly to stop ‘Deutsches museum’.
Adult tickets for the museum cost 14 Euros, children aged between 6 and 17 cost 4.50 Euros and under 6 visit for free.
Lastly you can always rely on there being a sea life centre in every major city and Munich is no exception. Shark tunnels, ray pools, rockpools and lots of fish from all the major seas and oceans are on show at the Munich sea life centre and various feeding and experiences live throughout the day.
It’s located up at the Olympic park and only 10 minutes’ walk from the Olympiazentrum metro stop. Book online to receive a discount and store the tickets on your phone. Adults cost 16 Euros and children between 3-14 cost 13 Euros whereas under 3’s are free.
Final thoughts
We hope this guide all on all the things to do in Munich has been useful; if you do want to follow our adventures, then come join us on YouTube, Instagram and Facebook, where we aim to provide you with lots of inspiration on your next getaway!
For another travel guide to a lovely city, check out ‘Things to do in Copenhagen’ here.
