Munich
From Imakoopedia
Munich (German: München) is the capital of Bavaria. It is the third-largest city of Germany (after Berlin and Hamburg) and its Oktoberfest beer celebration is world famous.
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Understand
When Germans are polled about where they would most like to live, Munich is consistently at the top of the list. Within easy driving distance from the Swiss Alps, Italy and the Mediterranean, not to mention Prague, Salzburg and some of the most beautiful scenery in Europe, it's not surprising everyone wants to be there! Add to its benefits beautiful architecture, green countryside which starts a mere half-hour away on the S-Bahn, the second largest university in Germany, and the greatest beer culture on the planet: could there be anything wrong with Munich? Yes and no. The Bavarians are very conservative (although, Munich itself traditionally has a Social Democratic municipal council), to the point of being reactionary. This can make it tough to get to know them, and at the very least, will lead to more than a few raised eyebrows at your ripped denim shorts. The younger generation is filled with Schicki-Mickis (German yuppies), so getting into the "right" nightclub or restaurant is half-impossible without connections. And last, there's a price to pay for living in a city where everyone else wants to be: Munich is the most expensive city in Germany. But all in all, its advantages make a visit more than worthwhile. Just leave the denim shorts at home!
The Föhn is a wind that blows down onto Munich from the Alps. It is blamed for a multitude of problems, including headaches and general crankiness. During the summer, when the prevailing wind patterns conspire to dump allergens from all corners of Europe and North Africa in Munich, the city gets more than its fair share of hay fever sufferers. Even those who are not prone to sniffle often do - there's always something new in the air!
A place in art (the most famous writers, artists, architects, and musicians who were born or lived in the region):
Egid Quirin Asam, François de Cuvilliés, Johann Michael Fischer, Albrecht Dürer, architects Barelli and Zuccalli (credited with bringing the Italian baroque style to Munich, a style that would become omnipresent throughout Bavaria), Leo von Klenze, Franz von Lenbach, Wassily Kandinsky and the artists of the Blaue Reiter (Blue Rider) School of Expressionist art.
Get in
There should be no problem at all. Munich has an international airport and is a knot point of the German railway net.
Highways from many directions lead to Munich, however they often get congested at peak times and at weekends, especially during the ski season. For day trips to Munich it's probably best to leave your car in a Park&Ride car park (see below).
The Munich Airport (MUC) is located a good distance outside the Munich center in the Northeast. The S-Bahn (commuter trains) are located in the lower levels of the airport and are a quick and easy way to get the center of Munich (Marienplatz)
By plane
Munich's airport (MUC), recently expanded, is served with domestic and international connections. Getting to Munich by plane shouldn't be an issue; even if you can not fly to Munich directly, your travel agent will have no problems booking you a flight via Frankfurt. Flight time from Frankfurt to Munich is about 35 minutes (not counting any overhead).
The airport is connected to downtown Munich by subway. Take the S1 or S8 lines. The ticket (one way) costs 8 Euros. It will take you about 30-40 minutes to get to the central station.
Get around
Best bet is the tram (streetcar), bus and metro (subway) system. You can get individual, group, day and week tickets. The metro (U-Bahn) stations are signed with a white capital "U" on a blue background.
The blue strip card (Streifenkarte) is a better value than buying lots of individual tickets. The cost is 9,50 euros, and may be purchased at dispensing machine at every station (note: machines do not accept bills over 10 euros). Clip 2 strips for most journeys in the city, or 8 from the airport. The rule is to clip two strips for each colored ring on the map.
The Munich MVV website (http://www.mvv-muenchen.de/de/mvv-info-service/plaene/netzplaene/index.html) has underground maps and, under the Pläne menu, maps of the Park&Ride car parks attached to U-bahn stations.
With over 200km of bike trails, one of the very best ways to explore the city is on a bicycle. Guided tours are available, or for the independent-minded, rentals and maps are available at the main train station (Hauptbahnhof) and other areas of the city.
Quarters
Schwabing (university area)
Schwabing is the upscale academic district - a trendy but charming neighborhood immediately beyond the Ludwigs-Maximilian Universität (try blue/orange metro stops Universität or Münchener Freiheit) filled with small coffee houses, expensive but astounding shoe stores, bookstores and speciality restaurants from around the world. Schwabing has always been an "in" place to live, and looking at the shady tree-lined streets, it's not difficult to imagine why.
See
Museums
- Alte Pinakothek (old painting gallery) contains some of the greatest European masterworks from the fourteenth to the eighteenth centuries, including the most important Rubens collection in Germany. The Alte Pinakothek recently underwent a major four-year closing and renovation.
- Neue Pinakothek includes nineteenth-century European painting and sculpture, and has also been recently renovated.
- Pinakothek der Moderne [1] (http://www.pinakothek.de/pinakothek-der-moderne/englisch/englisch.htm). Recently finished nearby, featuring 20th and 21st century art.
- Glyptothek museum. Another of King Ludwig's large collections is contained in the Glyptothek: one of the greatest Greek and Roman sculpture collections in all of Germany. The collection is based around a core of sculptures, the Aeginetes, excavated by English and German explorers at the island temple on Aegina early in the nineteenth century. It was built by imperial architect Leo von Klenze for the king and completed in 1830. Though almost entirely destroyed in World War II, the museum was heavily renovated and opened again to the public in 1972.
- Stadtmuseum. The City Museum of Munich has a varied collection of random objects, as city historical museums usually do, but its crown jewel is a permanent photographic exhibit in the first floor Fotomuseum called Bourgeois Culture from 1650 to the Present Day. There are historical photos from all sections of the city, giving a good impression of Munich's development.
- Antikensammlung (collection of antiquities). Ludwig I and his architect Klenze built a large square, Königsplatz, in classical style. Meant to be an "Athens on the Isar" the square encompasses many important buildings and collections, including the Antikensammlung. Formerly an exhibition venue (for the first 60-plus years of its life), then a museum of modern art, the Antikensammlung swung back in the exact opposite direction by the 1960s. At that time, the building was restored to hold Ludwig I's vast collection of Greek and Roman antiquities. It has the largest Greek and Etruscan vase collection in the world after the British Museum and the Louvre. With one's back to Karolinenplatz, facing the classical arch, the Glyptothek is on the right and the Antikensammlung is on the left.
- Deutsches Museum (http://www.deutsches-museum.de) - Museumsinsel 1 (Subway station Isartor, then follow signs), +49 89 2179-1 (fax: +49 89 2179-324). Daily 10 AM - 5PM (except public holidays). One of the greatest scientific and technical museums in the world, and one of the absolute "must see's" of Munich; if science and technology interest you at all you should not leave it out. Topics range from aviation to breweries, from computer sciences to bridge building. There are many guided tours on specific themes and different languages inside the museum. Plan to bring plenty of time. There's a planetarium and two branch offices in different locations which show vehicles that found no place in downtown Munich. Wheelchair friendly. € 7.50 for an adult, € 3 for students (Planetarium and branch museums not included).
- Egyptian Museum (http://www.aegyptisches-museum-muenchen.de/) - admission €4 (concessions €3, children free, free for all on Sundays)
- Lenbachhaus Gallery: Expressionist art
- Museum of Erotic Art
Palaces
- Residenz (prince's palace) The Schatzkammer (Treasury) within the Residenz has one of the best collections of ecclesiastical treasures in Europe, not to mention the royal insignia of Bavaria (crowns, orb, scepter, etc). The Antiquarium has the largest Renaissance room north of the Alps, and the Ahnengalerie (Ancestral Portrait Gallery) has a Wittelsbach family portrait collection. There is also a series of Rococo rooms by Cuvilliés.
- Schloss Nymphenburg
- Schloss Oberschleissheim
Churches
- Asamkirche Baroque architect and sculptor Egid Quirin Asam built this amazingly ornate Southern German-style baroque church right next door to his own house. His brother, Cosmas Damian, did all the frescoes. The church is dedicated to St John Nepomuk, a Bohemian saint whose name will crop up later in the Prague article. The Asamkirche, completed in 1746, glitters like a row of diamonds and is best seen by candlelight, especially at the yearly Christmas Eve service, replete with Bavarian singers in the choir stall.
- Frauenkirche (Church of Our Lady) The Frauenkirche is topped by two copper onion-domed towers recognizable from a distance. Though the church was constructed 1468-1488, and is therefore predominantly late Gothic, the onion domes are typically Renaissance. They were added to the exterior in 1525. The church emphasizes the vertical layout of its twin clock towers by keeping the façade relatively plain. Decorative vertical indentations on the outer portion of each tower draws the viewer's eyes upward. Instead of adding sculptural ornamentation in carved stone to the exterior like other typical Gothic churches, the Frauenkirche differs from all contemporary churches in its plain brick simplicity. Of course, this was not the first church on this site. Like almost every other major church in Europe it was constructed on the remnants of an earlier church. This site's old church (1240) belonged to the royal Bavarian Wittelsbach family and was based on what is now the Franciscan church in Salzburg. The Frauenkirche's style has changed many times over the years, perhaps most significantly after its destruction in World War II. The neo-Gothic furnishings put in place early in the nineteenth century, which replaced even earlier Baroque fittings, were all destroyed in air raids. Only the church walls were left standing. In the years 1989-1994, forty years after the church had been rebuilt, a color scheme similar to the original plan by the church's architect Jörg of Halspach was put in place. Plain white walls with beige trim that picks out the Gothic trim of the ceiling adds to the light, airy feel of the interior. The legendary Teufelstritt, or devil's footstep, stems from the large amount of light inside the Frauenkirche that seems to come from nowhere thanks to the large columns that block the view of the side aisles. According to legend, Jörg of Halspach made a deal with the devil that he could build a windowless church that was still filled with light. From the vestibule, looking down the center aisle (as long as the high Baroque altar covered the windows at the very back of the church) there appeared to be no windows at all. The devil stamped his foot in a fit of pique, leaving his "footprint" on a paving stone immediately inside the entrance. The stone is readily visible because it is mustard yellow rather than red and grey like the other tiles.
- Michaelskirche The largest Renaissance church north of the Alps was built between 1583-1599 thanks to Duke Wilhelm V, called The Pious. Despite nearly bankrupting Bavaria, Munich was left with an amazingly beautiful structure that houses an extremely unified iconographic program. "Iconographic program" is just an art term for the overall organized progression of religious images that corresponds to a theme.
- Peterskirche Munich's first parish church was started in the twelfth century, but ongoing additions and renovations have kept artists busy for centuries. During a city fire in 1327, the church was damaged and in 1607, the tower (called Alter Peter) was struck by lightning. A major DM 3 million renovation of the interior ceiling fresco (1755) by Johann Bapt. Zimmermann was scheduled to be completed in 2000. The side altars, which have already been renovated, are accessible, as is the immense, multi-columned gilded marble main altar. Inside altars with confessionals, as in other Munich churches, the confessors list which languages they speak other than German. The original Gothic framework of the church has been coated with Baroque and Rococo (note the typically Rococo shell motif) plasterwork, which breaks up the monotony of the mostly-white church. That will all change when the newly-cleaned, bright ceiling fresco is once again on display: it will be the focal point of the church! At the back of the church is a Lourdes grotto tucked under the choir loft stairs, as well as an educational display which shows step by step how a fresco is made (paint is applied to wet plasterwork, which dries as an integrated unit of base and color). The most disgusting altar in the Peterskirche is that of St Munditia, patron saint of women on their own. It is the second from the back, in the left aisle. Her entire skeleton, sewn into see-through cloth ornamented with jewels, is on display in a glass case, complete with fake eyes. Check it out!
Squares
- Altes Rathaus/Glockenspiel During the summer, a curious sight appears every morning in Marienplatz. Hundreds of tourists begin craning their necks skyward (and it's obvious they are tourists, because the native Münchner are all darting back and forth between the halted masses trying to cross the square and get their errands done!) to see the Glockenspiel work its magic on the front façade of the Altes Rathaus. As the automated clockwork figures come out to dance, the bells play and the tourists gape. But the Glockenspiel is truly a piece of art - it was built of handmade parts long before automation was the buzzword of the day, and it's still entrancing.
- Marienplatz The Marienplatz is the traditional heart of Munich. Its Mariensäule (Marian column) was built in 1638 as a reminder the city had been spared during Swedish occupation. It is not exceptionally different from any number of plague columns scattered around central Europe. What really draws a crowd on Marienplatz, though, is the Glockenspiel in the façade of the Neues Rathaus (New Town Hall). The summer tourist crowds gawk at the Glockenspiel figures enacting the Schäfflertanz (coopers' dance), a ritual originally performed to celebrate the end of the plague in Munich. The Rathaus was built in Flemish Gothic style between 1867 and 1908 by Georg Joseph Hauberissere.
Parks
- Englischer Garten At over twice the size of New York's Central Park and dating back to 1789, Englischer Garten begins at the very center of Munich just north of the Residence museum and Odeonsplatz, and continues north just over 5km. The park is divided into two distinct sections by a small city expressway called Mittlerer Ring. The southern section starts near Odeonsplatz and the Residenz Museum, and runs north, parallel to the student quarter of Schwabing. More populated than the northern section, a surprising number of people take advantage of lunch breaks during the week to sun themselves in the Garten, including employees from the nearby American Consulate (Königinstrasse 5). Here you'll see all kinds of human activity, including joggers, cyclists, strollers, skateboard and roller blades, riders on horseback, even surfboarders in wet suits taking advantage of currents under a bridge. Tourists are generally amused -- or scandalized -- by nude sunbathers, who may be encountered in any quiet section of the park on a warm day, but tend to congregate in the "official" area beside a small tributary of the Isar River that runs through the park. The Chinesischer Turm beer garden is located near the Monopteros, a neo classical rotunda that is situated on a hillside in the Garden. The northern half of the park is connected to the southern section by a pedestrian bridge beside the Seehaus Biergarten. Whereas the southern section is graced with open meadows and is densely populated, this section has a quieter, rural feel, with forest lots interspersed with fields graced with beautiful wildflowers in summer. Don't be surprised if you come across a herd of sheep, watched over by a shepherd in traditional clothing and his German Shepherd dogs. Quiet streams run through the park, as well as many bicycle and pedestrian trails. Indeed, the very best way to see this park is to rent a bicycle and explore.
Sight seeing
- Olympiaturm (http://www.drehrestaurant.de/) The more than 200m high tower gives an amazing view over the complete city and at good weather you also can see the mountain chain of the Alps.
Buy
- Viktualienmarkt This large open-air market sells everything from soup to nuts. And Lederhosen. Just off Marienplatz, generations of market families continue to hawk their wares from the same location. There are open air fruit and vegetable stands similar to those scattered around the city, as well as closed stands and little year-round trinket shops. Early in the morning and late in the afternoon on the way to and from work, Munich women stop by the market to pick up a little something from dinner - during midday it's a bit slower and therefore better for browsing.
Eat
Beer. Beer. Beer. During Lent, also known as Starkbierzeit (strong beer time), certain bock beers are so thick and filling they can be considered a meal. Weisswurst, a white veal sausage traditionally eaten only before noon with a sweet mustard. Schweinshax'n mit Knödeln (fat pork leg). Brezeln (large pretzels). Radi (salted white radish root, often served at beer gardens).
Drink
Beer gardens
What's Munich without beer? If you happen to be unfortunate enough to miss Oktoberfest, you can live through a sanitized, safer version at any of Munich's many beer gardens. The Hofbräuhaus may be the most famous beer hall, but there are countless beer gardens scattered around the city. Traditionally, there are large chestnut trees (Kastanienbäume) for shade, and many outdoor tables. Bring your own picnics, or, choose from a wide assortment of traditional Bavarian meals and snacks at the kiosks. Beer gardens are family friendly, with children's play areas on site. Well-behaved dogs are welcome, on leash.
- Chinesischer Turm One of the best-known outdoor beer gardens in Munich is the Chinesischer Turm (Chinese Tower, or pagoda) in the center of the Englischer Garten. This piece of chinoiserie doesn't seem out of place at all after a few good beers. Oompah bands play from the second story of the pagoda on summer weekends.
- Augustiner Locals and many beer aficionados say the beer here is Bavaria's best. The Augustiner's indoor beer garden is comfortable even in rotten weather, with its high ceilings and good lighting. But ultimately the most satisfying beer garden is the one at which one is a regular. Tables marked Stammtisch, perhaps with a day or time afterward, are reserved for regular gangs of beer buddies who meet same time, same place each week.
- Hofbräuhaus (http://www.hofbraeuhaus.de/) - touristy, but fun, with good beer and "oom-pah" bands. The Hofbräuhaus, Munich's (and maybe the world's) most famous brewpub, moved to its current location in 1644. It opened to the public after 1830. Nowadays, the embodiment of Bavarian beer culture is visited only by tourists. More likely than not you will hear the famous "eins, zwei, g'suffa!" song at least once if you spend any time there at all. Basically it means "one, two, drink up!"
- Aumeister Located at the very north end of Englischer Garten, Aumeister is considered one of Munich's most beautiful beer gardens. It is a favourite of locals and mostly unknown to tourists. The restaurant on site dates back to 1810 and was originally one of Prince Regent Luitpold's hunting lodges. Large playground on site. It is a 10 minute walk from the Studentenstadt or Freimann stations on the U6 subway line, but the very best way to get there is by bicycle through the park. Open Tuesday to Sunday, 9 am to 11 pm.
Festivals
- Oktoberfest (http://www.oktoberfest.de/en/) The first Oktoberfest took place 12 October 1810, to celebrate the marriage of Prince Ludwig of Bavaria and Princess Therese of Sachsen-Hildburghausen. All citizens of Munich were invited to a meadow (Wies'n) situated in front of the city tower, which was then renamed the Theresienwiese in honor of the bride. In early years of the fair, horse races were held, then as the event grew, agricultural conventions, which still take place every third year. But what about beer? After all, the Bavarian hops crop has to go somewhere! In 1896 businessmen working with the breweries in Munich built the first giant beer tents at Oktoberfest, and drinking has been the primary focus since. Each of the major breweries presides over its own large tent filled with traditional musicians leading the crowd in well-known drinking chants, incredibly strong barmaids hoisting ten or more huge Maß (1-liter glass beer mugs that are heavy even when empty!), and a spate of drunken people all trying to get into the bathroom at once. In 2003, Oktoberfest hosted 6.3 million visitors who drank 6.1 million liters of beer and ate the equivalent of 91 oxen, 383,000 sausages and 630,000 chickens.
Get out
The S8 and S1 both go to the airport from Marienplatz S-Bahn station, but be careful because the S1 line splits at Neufahrn just before the airport and not all S1 trains will actually reach the airport.
Dachau and Starnberg are good day trips. You may also want to see the Starnberg Lake (Starnberger See) or Ammersee .
External links
- the Official Munich City information portal (http://www.muenchen.de/home/60093/Homepage.html) - available in English, French, Italian and German (of course!)
- MVV (http://mvv-muenchen.de/en/index.html) - online computation of subway, bus and streetcar connections. The official urban rail network map (http://mvv-muenchen.de/en/home/fahrgastinformation/mvv-netz/netzplaene/schnellbahnnetz/index.html) is an essential means of orientation.
- Munich Found City Magazine (http://www.munichfound.de/)
- Toytown Munich (http://www.toytownmunich.com/)
