11 lovely things to do in Munich

On the shortest day of the year, when it is dark for a full sixteen hours, the starting gun goes off for the coldest and, for some, the least comfortable season. In winter we leave the house less often anyway, and when we do it is only with a hat, gloves and a scarf long enough to reach Mexico. And yet winter can be so beautiful: on a snowy evening at Königsplatz, for instance, when the rabbits hop silently past you. Munich then looks even more peaceful than it already is, and a little kitsch as well, but in a good way. Whether or not the white splendour turns up, there is plenty to do in Munich in winter.

The Westpark is one of our favourite parks: it never feels crowded, and there is still plenty to see in winter. Stand in front of the snow-covered Thai Sala and you could be in another country altogether. Walk down to the Westsee and you get Munich winter romance in its purest form, and you will go home happy. One more thing in the Westpark’s favour: the Mollsee and the Westsee sit at opposite ends, so you can walk from one lake to the other and make an afternoon of it.

No jigger in the world can measure how much we miss our favourite bar. The company and the atmosphere are hard to replace at the moment, but on the drinks front help is at hand. Nothing against a corner-shop beer or a spritzer on the sofa, yet sometimes the occasion calls for more. Just as the bartenders you trust once read every wish from your lips, they now bring those wishes to your door. Salon Irkutsk sends out couriers regularly, and so do Call Soul and Bar Garcon, with ice and bottles of pre-mixed drinks from a Negroni to a Vieux Carré. If you would rather throw the bar towel over your own shoulder, we recommend going fully do-it-yourself. A whiskey sour or a gin fizz is no black art and the internet is full of good instructions; our favourite is this entertaining Australian gentleman. It is also an excellent excuse to get to know a few local spirits, somewhere between Duke Gin and Slyrs whisky.

With its grand buildings and imposing façades, the Kunstareal is impressive at any time of year. What crowns it, though, is the current light project, which runs until 14 February 2021. So we urge you to wander through Maxvorstadt and see the spectacle for yourself. Every evening at dusk, eighteen museums between Königsplatz and Theresienstraße are lit up with striking light and video installations. Take your camera and set off on a short art walk through what is probably the most impressive exhibition in the city right now.

The Milla does not let you down. That is simply a fact; you could shout it at strangers in the street and they would have no choice but to agree. Long before this strange year, the Milla carried us through the nights with music, and happily it has not let this year stop it either. Which is why on Saturday you can once again hear first-rate live sound in your living room and dance properly to it. With its Telemilla series the club sends you concerts recorded live within its own four walls, straight to your home over the coming weeks. So: buy a ticket and put a bottle on ice.

Let us not kid ourselves: you have seen us and we have seen you, all of us in new running shoes or fresh tracksuits. Running was and remains the sporting event of the year. But where do you go when everyone is doing it? Nymphenburg, for one, where you can pad along the canal in the shadow of royalty, at its most beautiful early in the morning. In Giesing the time of day hardly matters and the route is lovely all the same. Start at the Grünwalder Stadion and take the path behind it towards Harlaching (lungs: not bad) or Grünwald (lungs: impressive). When the sun breaks through the trees past the spires of the Templar priory, even your inner couch potato jumps for joy.

More art for everyone! That was the Bavarian State Opera’s thinking, and for some time now Staatsoper TV has been letting us share in its productions. They are free as a rule, and from 4.90 euros you also get a 24-hour ticket for past performances on Vimeo, where each piece is available as video on demand. From Falstaff to La Bohème to Die Welt bewegen, every opera-loving heart is served. To keep your stomach in equally good spirits, cook something festive. A fondue, for instance: it suits the gold-and-amber light of the opera, and both occasions have a way of stretching out. MyFondue offers ready-made mixtures you can put together yourself from forty-five ingredients and have delivered. Did somebody just lose their bread?

The Perlacher Mugl lies a little hidden, and is all the lovelier for it, in the middle of the Perlacher Forst. This forest in the south of Munich borders directly on Harlaching. The easiest way is to take tram 15 or 25 to the Großhesseloher Brücke; from there a walk of about thirty minutes through the woods brings you to the Mugl. At its foot there is a gentle slope that is perfect for children. The longest run starts at the little hut on top and follows the footpath all the way down. The slopes in the Olympiapark or on the Fröttmaninger Berg are faster, true, but the walk through the snowy Perlacher Forst makes this the finer winter outing.

Nowhere can a taste for local food and Munich neighbourhoods be indulged as thoroughly as at the weekly market in your own quarter. The freshest ingredients really do come from the market. It is particularly pleasant in Lehel, where otherwise not a great deal happens: on Thursdays the most varied traders meet at St.-Anna-Platz, and everything from wonderful cake to fresh pasta is there. Thursday is market day in the Westend too, and anyone living nearby should visit the small but thoroughly charming farmers’ market on Georg-Freundorfer-Platz. Finally, something for everyone from Giesing, over in the Au: every Saturday morning at Mariahilfplatz there is excellent veg and a fine choice of meat. Treat yourself to a Leberkäs roll in hand and walk a stretch along the Isar.

Comfort food is the elixir of life: umami, tasty, warming, home, however you want to describe it. In winter we need something hot in the belly, something hearty that carries us forward. And whether to go or to collect, Munich’s kitchens deliver. At Fink’s Knödelküche, for example, you can have the dumplings ready-cooked, or frozen to finish at home. Picture it: you slip into your slippers early in the morning, shuffle out of the bedroom still half-frozen and remember on the way to the kitchen that there are Schlutzkrapfen in the freezer. Fortified and well wrapped up, head for the Viktualienmarkt and Caspar Plautz, where hot baked potatoes give strength. On the way back, stop at Salon Irkutsk for a pelmeni in hand, and once home place an order with SAM. And if the sushi has not finished you off, since cold burns calories as everyone knows, pick up a royal Kaiserschmarrn from the Kaisergarten on your digestive walk.

Whenever German television comes up, the talk is either of something arty, spare and brilliant, possibly in black and white, or of unspeakable Saturday-night comedies with the same five actors. Only Munich series seem to have claimed a niche in between for decades: easy-going, full of local colour, but with a wit of their own and genuinely clever. The best example of recent years is Fett & Fett. Jaksch is our spirit animal, and may soon be yours: the series is still in the ZDF media library and another season appears to be on the way. Servus Baby moves in similar waters, and anyone who prefers it in youth slang, with Fatoni as a supermarket manager, should try the new Munich Joyn series Stichtag. Rather rougher, at least in the making, our friends at Fancy Footwork have sketched a hangover day from hell in their Instagram series Rüde. And finally, how could we ever forget him, Monaco Franze is now on Netflix as well.

Munich can be a glossy little city. Somehow it has still managed to produce a whole shelf of beautiful magazines with real substance. Bring the reading home and look at Munich through a printed window. Quite apart from the big SZ-Magazin, there is the Mucbook, which prints the Munich pages really well; issue 15 has just appeared thanks to a successful crowdfunding campaign. Also lovely: the Fika Magazin, whose second issue brings wintry tips and tricks, recipes and small pieces of wisdom. Or Golden Ride, a magazine for women who surf, snowboard and mountain bike. If none of that is you, or you do not even feel like stepping out of the front door, simply have a look at the online shop of our favourites at the Soda Shop, where there is more to order than books alone.

We will stick our necks out and claim there is hardly a better place for spring than Munich, provided spring bothers to show up. We wait for it longingly, because when the temperatures finally rise, spring in Munich feels like going to bed freshly showered in freshly made sheets. Cherry blossom hangs from the trees, we cycle along the Isar without frozen fingers and enjoy the warmth of a sun that is finally still around after five in the afternoon. Spring is hope, spring is a fresh start, and here are at least eleven lovely things that will make spring in Munich the best season of all.

In spring there is nothing better than finally getting the bike out again. We recommend the route to Großhesselohe: you simply follow your nose, and you can turn it into a proper kiosk rally, with eleven stops if you like. Depending on your legs, your time and your route, you can start in the Englischer Garten at Fräulein Müller, pass the Milchhäusl and roll on to Fräulein Grüneis. Further stops wait at the Reichenbachkiosk and at Isarwahn, and one thing you must not forget: an ice lolly at the kiosk by the Braunauer railway bridge. Towards the Flaucher comes the obligatory coffee at Kiosk 1917 and a Spezi stop at the Flaucherstandl, and at the Großhesseloher Brücke you have a choice of endings: a Helles and something to eat at Ronnie’s Kiosk, or coffee and cake at the Isarfräulein.

You know the phenomenon: somehow you never leave your own quarter. There is usually enough going on there, after all. A good reason to cross the boundary is a visit to a weekly market. Almost every quarter has one, but mostly only once a week. So take out the wicker basket, walk or cycle beyond your own streets and stock up on fresh vegetables, sharp cheese, bright flowers or fish from the lakes nearby. We have written down our favourite Munich markets for you here.

Gyms never excited us much even before Corona, and by now we have had our fill of home workouts too. If you do not fancy running the same circuit for the hundredth time, Munich’s fitness trails and outdoor training courses are the answer. There are plenty of them, as you can see here. And if ball games are more your thing, we suggest a round of table tennis or basketball, in the Maßmannpark for instance.

When you think of drinks, bars and good restaurants, do you only ever think of Maxvorstadt or the Glockenbachviertel? Then it is high time you widened your culinary horizon and looked across to the other side of the Isar. There a walk along the river or the Auer Mühlbach can be garnished with a stop or two. Freshly brewed craft beer is waiting at Brewsli at weekends in good weather, and depending on which way you carry on it is worth calling in at the Crönlein (from May), the Giesinger Weinberg, the Attentat Griechischer Salat, the Ambar Bistro and, back down the hill, the Ahimsa and of course the Hexenhäusl, also known as Gans Woanders. Treat yourself.

We always liked the Theresienwiese, but over the past year we came to appreciate it all over again. There is hardly another place with so much open ground in the middle of the city. Here we skate, here we cycle, here we drink our after-work beer on the steps below the Bavaria, or rather the after-work drink we pick up from Fräulein Wagner right by the Bavariapark. And by the way, there are already a few plans afoot to make the Theresienwiese a musical and cultural place to be again this year. We are curious.

Good news for everyone on two wheels: the pop-up cycle lanes are coming back, and this time they look set to stay. All the more reason to finally get yourself a decent bike, or at least bring the old one back into shape. We warmly recommend the teams at Bici Bavarese and at the Veloterie, who opened a new shop in the Au just in time for the start of spring.

As soon as spring arrives we seem to look out of the window every hour, so as not to miss a single magnolia or cherry blossom. We are especially fond of walking down Georgenstraße, because in front of the Palais Bissing stands our favourite tree with the finest blossom of them all. It goes particularly well with a coffee and cornetti from Morso, or a good cinnamon bun from the TH Café.

We will keep this short: ice cream is a matter of faith. No wonder we set off in search of the best in the city every single year. For a little help finding the cherry on the scoop, see our ice cream guide.

We are delighted, and more than a little relieved, to be able to breathe museum and exhibition air again. The good news had barely been announced when countless museums and galleries were ready and waiting. There are the absolute classics, of course, such as the Pinakotheken, but also further gems: the Kunstfoyer of the Versicherungskammer Bayern, the MUCA, the Literaturhaus, or our all-time guarantee of good humour, the Valentin Karlstadt Musäum.

Around the middle of April the time usually comes, and anyone with a keen nose is suddenly tickled by a smell of garlic. The wild garlic season is short, but it is hard to miss in the Isar meadows, at the Südfriedhof and above all in the Englischer Garten, where the green herb grows like mad on every corner. We like to hunt in the northern part of the Englischer Garten and turn our haul, after a thorough wash, into a fine pesto. But take care not to confuse it with lily of the valley, which is poisonous. The strong garlic smell is the sure sign that you have the right plant.

Yes, it has been a while since we recommended any pleasure beyond the city limits, and we all know why. Yet there are a few spots you can reach on a long bike ride, with the Munich S-Bahn or at least a not-too-long train journey. The Osterseen definitely belong on that list. You will find more outings by public transport here.

There is a reason we have been dodging a kebab guide for two years: the subject is hotly disputed and yet somehow settled. The best döner, also known as halloumi sandwich, also known as sucuk and feta burger, is quite simply the one at the Türkitch on Humboldtstraße. The thought of people leaving Munich without having eaten here makes us sad, so consider this an unambiguous recommendation for your stay. Once you have survived the half-hour queue, walk with your sandwich into the Rosengarten, which is not only another highlight around the corner but rather less crowded than the Isar. Also lovely: wander with food in hand through Sommerstraße and the Birkenau, where sweet old houses and cobblestones make you feel you have left the city behind.

With so many sweet, splendid, thoroughly good cafés in Munich it is genuinely hard to pick the one address you show your visitors, but the tip that never fails is probably the Marais. Munichers will leave their own quarter for this café, and no wonder: there is the intimate courtyard, and there is the 1920s furniture. In this shop-cum-café you can buy everything you see, table, chairs and crockery included. The breakfast menu is full of good classics too: Greek yoghurt with honey and walnuts, or scrambled eggs with tomato, cheese and ham. Anyone stuffed after coffee, cake or breakfast either stays put for half the day, walks through the handsome Westend, or goes to sit by the Bavaria and enjoy the view. A special tip that even locals have never got round to: go inside the Bavaria statue and look out through her head.

If we start arguing about the most beautiful beer garden we will still be sitting here tomorrow. Our view: the one on Wiener Platz comes pretty close, because it manages both things at once. It is in the middle of the city, and yet you feel as though you were out in the countryside looking up into the treetops. Besides all those chestnut trees it has another big advantage: it is exactly the right size. And when it rains you can be inside in seconds, where a proper old inn awaits, with regulars at their table and good food. When the strings of lights come on in the evening, even the last sceptic falls for the place. Promised. One thing you must do while you are in this corner: walk along Preysingstraße, one of the loveliest streets in Munich. Haidhausen is like that, full of superlatives.

If you fancy a short trip along the Isar but away from the crowds at the Reichenbachbrücke, the best plan is to head out to Großhesselohe. The tram takes about twenty minutes from Max-Weber-Platz, the bike perhaps ten minutes longer. Here you can look down on the Isar from a great height, swim, and feel thoroughly Bavarian watching the raft parties go by with their brass bands. After that you will want something to eat, and there are two good options. One is the Isarfräulein, a delightfully sweet café-kiosk with a colourful courtyard serving coffee, home-baked cake and hearty snacks. The other is the classic: off to the Wawi. The Waldwirtschaft Großhesselohe scores in its splendid beer garden not only with really good food but with a jazz stage.

The Container Collective is a one-of-a-kind place your visitors should not miss. Here you get coffee and cinnamon buns at the Café Kaserne de Janeiro, good drinks at the Bar of Bel Air, the occasional party at the Spanplatte, excellent gin creations at Gin City and a great deal more. Alongside the food and drink, many creatives work here, and with the Werksviertel Mitte around it an entirely new corner of Munich is taking shape. Afterwards, climb into one of the VW buses run by Hey Minga: their city tours are genuinely interesting even for locals. There are two different routes, running on Mondays, Thursdays and at weekends; the exact dates are on the website.

A perfect Munich programme in the city centre that still avoids the usual tourist corners? Your visitors would like a pretty souvenir of the city? Anyone who also wants to support small Munich labels should go to the small but very fine Coco Monaco on Marienplatz, where you will find accessories, crockery, furniture, cosmetics and delicacies, all of them local. After that little shopping trip there is nowhere better to unwind than the Dachgarten. The city’s new hot spot, and one really has to call it that, combines a roof terrace, lunch, a bar, a touch of wilderness, a hint of Klunkerkranich, a parking deck, strings of lights and planting beds. Sounds exciting? It is. And it is beautiful, with a view of the Frauenkirche.

It is a Munich institution and everyone should do it once in their Munich life, your visitors above all: sucking Weißwurst at the Großmarkthalle. From seven in the morning the butcher Ludwig Wallner serves what are said to be the best white sausages in the city, with a pretzel, sweet mustard and beer. Manage that at such an hour and you are set up until at least midday, and you can go straight on to the Bahnwärter Thiel, which is just around the corner and open from noon on summer weekends, with DJs, drinks, a fine outdoor area and a flea market now and then. The plan works the other way round too: dance at the Bahnwärter late into the night and stay long enough to go for Weißwurst at seven in the morning.

The Olympiapark is not the most beautiful park Munich has, but there is a great deal to see. When the courtyard flea markets are not on, the market at the Olympia Parkharfe is the tip that always works. Every week second-hand goods, some cool and some decidedly less so, change hands here at guaranteed small prices. After the shopping, be sure to look out over Munich from the Olymberg, and on the way to the underground do not miss the Olympic Village, where students live in little houses they have painted themselves. Fascinating, and a corner of Munich entirely its own.

The Maria Einsiedel is by some distance the finest open-air pool in the city, if not in the world: strings of colourful bunting, two natural pools cleaned without a drop of chlorine, and the freezing Isar canal running right through the grounds. The bike ride out here alone, through the Isar meadows and patches of woodland, brings you down to earth and shows Munich at its best. Once you have spent a day here every door is open to you. On the way back we still like to stop at the Schinderstadl, a perfect example of Munich’s kiosk scene deluxe, which by now is barely distinguishable from a beer garden. At the Schinderstadl you sit beautifully by the Flaucher and order Currywurst, a Radler or a home-made cinnamon bun.

All right, the Haus der Kunst is hardly Munich’s best-kept secret, but it belongs on your list all the same, because here you can kill several birds with one stone. See the changing exhibitions in the museum, not quite as dusty as the Alte Pinakothek but not as abstract as the Brandhorst either; browse the handsome museum bookshop; then enjoy the golden light on the wonderful terrace of the Goldene Bar. And if you feel like it, bring your swimming things and let the Eisbach carry you along once. You see the point: the Haus der Kunst lies so well and so beautifully that with visitors in town there is no getting past it.

The Westpark is, so to speak, the Englischer Garten of Sendling, only everything here is a little more relaxed. For Asian flair it offers, instead of the Chinese Tower, a Nepalese pagoda and a Thai pavilion with a Buddha on a platform in the middle of the lake. The sight alone is enough to unwind and daydream your way to Asia. After a walk through the big park the best stop is the Café Gans am Wasser. This sweet little caravan café right on the water serves not only coffee, spritz, ice cream, good chips and burgers, but also free concerts from time to time, gentle yoga classes and comfortable sofas where you can read in peace. We are quite in love with the Gans am Wasser, and your visitors will be too.

The exhibition Nachts. Clubkultur in München takes us on a tour of eighty years of Munich nightlife. For the coming months, until early January 2023, the Stadtmuseum is studded with places and objects of subculture that were thought lost: a piece of wall from the Atomic, the famously notorious sequin curtain, the DJ booth with its original stickers, even the real front door with its sign and everything that went with it. The Atomic Café is brought back to life, if not quite as alive as we would like it.

Walks are good all year round, but in autumn they are at their very best. The stretch along the Auer Mühlbach is particularly pretty: quiet and idyllic, yet it takes you past plenty of corners worth showing your visitors. Start at the Friedensengel, make a short detour to the Kabelsteg on the Isar, then simply follow the stream towards the Au for as long as your feet will carry you. If hunger strikes on the way, a good soup at the sweet little Henry hat Hunger will set you right.

The Biazza in Giesing is one of those places you walk into and feel at home immediately. Perhaps it is the interior, somewhere between Scandinavian minimalism and a handsome taverna. Perhaps it is the weekly changing menu of Greek and Italian dishes that leaves you spoilt for choice. But most of all it is Saki and Flo, the two owners, who greet you with open arms and a broad smile, and Saki’s father, who invites you to linger over an assortment of schnapps from his homeland.

Anyone wanting to show visitors the cooler corners of Munich cannot skip the Glockenbach. The quarter is full of wonderful small shops selling beautiful and curious things. Our favourites: postcards and books at Wortwahl, interiors and fashion from the Exit Concept Store, and gloriously mad vintage clothing at Alva-Morgaine.

At Berg-am-Laim-Straße 117, a mural of more than three hundred square metres by the artist Christian C100 Hundertmark, created together with his colleague Sebastian Wandl, has been glowing since October 2020. In keeping with the supermarket below it, C100 produced a colourful, modern take on food, shining in strong blues and reds high above the Munich Art District. The oversized work is not the only thing to inspect in the surrounding streets: the aim of the Munich Art District is to turn the commercial area around Neumarkter Straße into a lively, appealing quarter where art is part of the streetscape.

When did you last sit in a theatre? Probably a season or so ago. All the better, then, that the new Munich theatre season is worth seeing. We would urge you to fill the rows away from the big houses as well. Munich’s small theatres deserve a visit: the city is home to more than eighty of them. Our guide already introduces eleven. Look in at the Mathilde Westend, the Hofspielhaus or the Teamtheater this autumn and see for yourself what the city’s alternative stages can do. And unlike at the big houses, afterwards you can happily argue about the play and the cast with the handful of other people who were there.

The Café Jasmin is famous across the city by now, with its mint-green velvet upholstery, metal coat racks, chandeliers and 1950s photo wallpaper. The wallpaper is even a listed monument. If you have no appetite for sightseeing but still want to show your visitors something particularly Munich, simply walk into this homely café on Augustenstraße at any hour of the day. In the afternoon you can sink into the soft armchairs over a cappuccino and truffle tart, in the evening over a Maxvorstadt lemonade, home-made raspberry lemonade with rum, and feel as though you were in your grandmother’s sitting room. Anyone who manages to get out of the chairs again should go and see the fine exhibitions at the Museum Brandhorst or the Pinakothek der Moderne.

You can shop for handsome antiques against the backdrop of the racecourse at the Daglfing flea market, held here every Friday and Saturday. It has everything a vintage heart could wish for: porcelain, jewellery, clothes, furniture, picture frames, lamps and a great deal more. A flea market genuinely worth the journey out. And because all that open-air strolling and rummaging turns cold quickly in autumn, the best thing afterwards is to warm up at the Prinzregentenbad, where 1,300 square metres hold a steam bath, a saunarium, a log-cabin sauna, a Finnish sauna and a whirlpool.

Take the S8 towards Herrsching and after a scenic forty-minute ride you reach Steinebach. From there it is downhill to the beautiful Wörthsee, which is worth a visit in autumn too. You can stroll along the lakeside promenade, admire the little garden houses on the shore with a touch of envy, take a pedal boat across the water, and sit on a bench with a hot chocolate from Il Kiosko watching the world go by. Or settle for the last time this year into the Augustiner beer garden, catch a few final rays of sun and raise a glass to the golden autumn.

One of our favourite places for brunch and sunshine all day long spent the lockdown tinkering with its menu. Now the fine lady tempts us into her brightly coloured rooms with tapas. We will say only this: home-made aioli, papas arrugadas and pimientos de padrón. If Spanish is the only language you understand here, all the better: go straight over and order your way down the whole menu.

For decades the Café Waldschlucht near Bad Kohlgrub was a popular day-trip destination, but those times are long past. Since the beginning of 2021, though, work has been under way to breathe new life into the old building and its pond. Behind it are Julian and Daniel Hahn and friends, who have already shown us with the Bahnwärter Thiel, Gans Woanders, the Alte Utting and others that they shy away from no task and can make a new oasis out of the least promising spot. Work at the Waldschlucht continues, but a poolside pop-up is due to open as early as this summer, and we are looking forward to chips, a Helles and perhaps a concert or two by the water. Updates are best followed on their Instagram page. By car you will be there in about an hour once it opens, by train it is an hour and a half to Bad Kohlgrub.