The Wandering Hart

Munich is one of the few places internationally that I’ve now seen more than once and it was definitely worth the return trip. The city is beautiful and full of history, beautiful gardens and palaces, and (of course) lots of delicious beer.

Sites & Itinerary

We kicked off our Munich stay with a trip to the Englischer Garten (or English Garden), which is the largest urban park in Germany. The first thing we saw at the very edge of the park was the Eisbachwelle, which is part of an artificially created stream with waves for urban surfing. The stream itself winds through much of the park and has at least one additional location for surfing further into the park. There were also people swimming and riding the current down the stream, which is technically not allowed but is clearly not strictly enforced. Personally, I thought the current looked fast and wouldn’t have done it myself, but everyone looked like they were having a good time cooling off! The surfing areas were also very busy with plenty of surfers waiting to take their turn on the small area for waves.

Once we had watched enough of the surfing, we stopped by the Chinese Tower beer garden for lunch and some drinks. This area is a very busy beer garden featuring a Chinese-style pagoda, which was originally built as a viewing platform but the upstairs is now closed to the public. The food and beer were good and it was a great place to kick off our biergarten crawl! From there we wandered through the park and hopped to additional beer gardens as we went. I think the universal favorite was Seehaus, which looked out over a beautiful lake, but there are plenty throughout the park that are worth a stop and it’s a great way to spend a nice day!

On our second day in Bavaria, we actually left Munich to take a tour of Neuschwanstein. I had booked the premium version of this tour through TripAdvisor and was really happy with our experience! The tour brought us first to Linderhof Palace, which is another of King Ludwig’s castles and features a beautiful garden, and then took us to Oberammergau, a medieval village along the Romantic Road that had tons of beautiful wall murals and cute shops. Then finally it was time for the main attraction and our tour of Neuschwanstein Castle! I definitely recommend stopping at Marienbrücke first to take pictures of the castle from the bridge and then taking the full tour of the castle. We were a little disappointed because several of the rooms were closed for renovations, but the tour was still very informative and the castle itself is incredible.

For our third day we focused on Munich’s Old Town, which features the Frauenkirche (a beautiful Gothic church), St. Peter’s (another gorgeous church), and of course the famous glockenspiel at New Town Hall. The glockenspiel goes off at 11am & 12pm (as well as 5pm in the summer) and I thought seeing the 15min story that the mechanical characters re-enact was really cool! Definitely get there a little early as it gets crowded. There were also a ton of options for going up to viewpoints at the top of buildings around Marienplatz, including at the Frauenkirche, St. Peter’s, and New Town Hall. We did go up in St. Peter’s, but to be honest it was so crowded that it wasn’t really worth it.

After seeing the core historic sites, we went to Viktualienmarkt, which is a large market featuring a beautiful maypole and several restaurants and beer gardens, for lunch. If you snag a table without a tablecloth at the beer garden you can grab drinks and food from wherever you want in the market and enjoy it there. Getting a table and navigating all the stalls to cobble together a lunch was a little tricky, but it was a fun spot to check out.

Once we were hungry again (which took a while!) we stopped at the famous Hofbräuhaus for beer and some pretzels. Hofbräuhaus was, of course, extremely busy and it was really warm inside. It was cool, though, to see the most famous beer hall in Germany and we were fortunate enough to be there while a band was playing. Since it was so crowded and hot, we actually opted to move to Ayinger am Platzl for dinner and really enjoyed the food and some Ayinger beer there.

On my final day in Munich I decided I hadn’t gotten enough time in palaces and wandered over to Munich Residenz. On the way there we heard opera music coming from an alley and found a group of musicians and an opera singer randomly performing on the street, which was very cool and just the kind of thing you hope to stumble across while wandering European streets! We listened to them for multiple songs before heading to the Residenz, which is a massive palace with some construction dating as far back as the 14th century (and some as recent as the 20th). There are 130 rooms that you can tour and we spent hours just wandering through each and reading about the history of the building. It’s definitely worth a stop and requires setting aside a decent amount of time! Seeing centuries worth of German history was a good way to close out our time in Bavaria.

Recommended Restaurants

Honestly we didn’t focus as much on food while we were in Munich, but we still enjoyed food and treats from a few great places. Below are my favorites from this trip:

Ayinger am Platzl: This restaurant is right across from Hofbräuhaus and I thought the food was really good! It’s a much calmer option for dinner than staying at Hofbräuhaus and also gives you the opportunity to round out your German beer tasting with some Ayinger brews.

Schiller Braü: We stayed very close to this restaurant and ended up going twice! It may have been that we were starving, but the first time we went we were especially impressed. They have an excellent käsespätzle, good schnitzel, and solid beer options including some beer cocktails.

Melik Sweets: If you’re interested in trying any Turkish sweets, this place is a great option! They had great baklava (and a ton of different kinds of baklava) as well as many other delicious treats. We ended up going in multiple times and just ordering by pointing at things as random and we were always pleased with the results!

Anzi Kitchen: By the end of this trip, we were ready for a break from German food and this Asian restaurant really hit the spot. The interior is anime themed and the menu spans a variety of Asian cuisines. Everything was delicious and the service was fast.