Munich travel guide — what to see, how to get around

Destinations › Europe › Munich

Munich is the Germany non-Germans picture — beer halls, Baroque palaces, and a river with a standing wave that people surf in the middle of a public park — and it is also the country's cleanest jumping-off point for the Alps, with Dachau, Neuschwanstein and Garmisch all reachable on regional trains. From Toronto it is the easier of Germany's big southern cities to reach, because Lufthansa and Air Canada both serve it nonstop from Pearson.

Getting there

How to reach Munich

This is the straightforward one: Lufthansa and Air Canada both fly Toronto Pearson to Munich nonstop, though frequency and whether the route runs through the depths of winter vary by season, so confirm the schedule when you book. Eastbound the flight runs roughly eight and a half hours, a little longer coming home. You arrive at Munich Airport Franz Josef Strauss (MUC); Star Alliance carriers, Lufthansa and Air Canada among them, use Terminal 2. The rail link is S-Bahn München lines S1 and S8 from the station in the terminal complex — the S8 runs into town via the east (Ostbahnhof, Marienplatz, Hauptbahnhof) and the S1 via the north and west (Moosach, Laim) — and they alternate, so either one drops you on the central trunk line. One real trap: the S1 splits at Neufahrn, with one portion continuing to the airport and the other to Freising. Read the destination display on the carriage you are standing in front of, not just the platform indicator, or you'll end up in Freising with a flight to catch.

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Getting around

Once you're there

MVG runs the U-Bahn, trams and buses inside the city; S-Bahn München (DB) runs the S-Bahn; the MVV — Münchner Verkehrs- und Tarifverbund — is the fare union that makes one ticket valid across all of it. Zones are Zone M, covering the entire city of Munich plus a slice of the surrounding area, then numbered rings outward to the edge of the network, with the whole-network ticket sold as M–6. The airport sits in Zone 5, so an airport-to-city ticket is M–5, and the Airport-City-Day-Ticket exists in single and group versions for exactly that journey plus a day in town. Dachau is in Zone 1, so that day trip is M–1, not a Zone M ticket. One quirk worth knowing: a number of stops sit on a zone boundary and count as belonging to either zone, so the cheaper option can apply depending on which direction you are travelling. The machine works this out for you, but it explains why two apparently similar journeys price differently.

Don't miss

The best of Munich

Dachau Concentration Camp Memorial Site

Take the S2 towards Dachau/Petershausen to Dachau Bahnhof, then bus 726 towards Saubachsiedlung to the 'Dachau, KZ-Gedenkstätte' stop — on an M–1 ticket, not a Zone M one. Admission is free and no booking is needed; the site is open daily apart from a single closing day around Christmas. English guided tours for individuals are ticketed separately at the visitor centre and do cap out, so buy well before the start time. The memorial advises that the site is not suitable for younger children.

Neuschwanstein

The interior is guided-tour only and tours sell out. Book through the official Hohenschwangau ticket service online rather than a reseller; there is no phone or email reservation, and whatever is left over is released at the Ticket Center in Hohenschwangau for that same day only. Advance booking is strongly advised rather than strictly mandatory, but turning up on spec in high season is how people end up photographing the castle from the bridge and going home.

Deutsches Museum

Still mid-modernisation, so a substantial part of the main Museumsinsel building is a construction site while a long run of permanent exhibitions — astronautics through robotics — plus the rebuilt ZEISS planetarium are open. Check what is actually open before you commit a day to it. The Verkehrszentrum (transport) and Flugwerft Schleissheim (aviation) branches are separate sites and unaffected.

Marienplatz and the Neues Rathaus

The hub of the whole S-Bahn trunk line — the S1 and S8 from the airport both stop here, as does essentially everything else — and the setting for the Christkindlmarkt each Advent. The Glockenspiel in the town hall tower runs on a fixed daily schedule that shifts with the season, so look up the day's times on the city's site rather than standing in the square hoping.

Munich in pictures

Munich

Where to base yourself

Neighbourhoods of Munich

Altstadt and Lehel

Suits first-timers and anyone on two or three nights: Marienplatz, the Viktualienmarkt, the Residenz, the Frauenkirche and the Hofgarten are all inside the old-town ring on foot, and Lehel next door is quiet, residential and a short walk from the Englischer Garten and the Isar. Does NOT suit budget travellers — these are the most expensive beds in the city — and the Altstadt core is pedestrianised and paved in rough setts, so taxis and rideshares often cannot reach the hotel door and you finish the last block over cobbles with your luggage.

Maxvorstadt

Suits museum people, students and anyone travelling with teenagers: the Kunstareal packs the Alte Pinakothek, the Pinakothek der Moderne, the Lenbachhaus, the Glyptothek and the NS-Dokumentationszentrum into a few flat blocks, surrounded by university cafés and independent shops, with the U2, U3 and U6 running through. The Neue Pinakothek is the gap — its building has been shut for a long renovation since 2019 and is not expected back for years, so do not plan around it. Does NOT suit anyone after Bavarian atmosphere or nightlife — it is a gallery-and-lecture-hall district and it goes quiet early.

Ludwigsvorstadt, around the Hauptbahnhof

Suits travellers who want the cheapest central beds, a direct S1 or S8 to the airport from the doorstep, and the Theresienwiese a few minutes away. Does NOT suit anyone looking for charm — this is the plainest slice of central Munich, the streets immediately around the station are scruffy and busy late at night, and during Oktoberfest rooms here are either unavailable or priced beyond reason. Families with young children will be happier a few U-Bahn stops away.

Haidhausen and Glockenbachviertel

Suits repeat visitors and people who want to eat and drink where locals do: much of Haidhausen east of the Isar kept its 19th-century streets and village squares, and the Glockenbachviertel and Gärtnerplatz south of the old town are the café, bar and LGBTQ heart of the city. Does NOT suit a sightseeing-first itinerary — you cross the Isar or walk out of the ring every morning — and the Glockenbach bar streets are noisy on weekend nights.

What to eat

Eating in Munich

Weisswurst

Poached veal-and-pork white sausage with sweet mustard, a Brezn and a wheat beer. Two rules that matter: it is a late-breakfast dish and tradition says it must not hear the noon bell, so butchers and taverns stop serving it around midday; and you do not eat the casing — you either cut it lengthwise and unroll it or, if you want to look local, suck the sausage out of the skin. Viktualienmarkt stalls and the old-town Wirtshäuser are the natural setting.

Beer garden Brotzeit

The cold plate that beer gardens are built around: Obatzda (paprika-spiked soft cheese whipped with butter and onions), Radi (a salted white radish cut in a spiral), Brezn, Leberkäse in a roll, and Steckerlfisch, whole mackerel grilled on a stick. The legal quirk is real — traced to an 1812 royal decree and preserved in Bavaria's modern beer-garden rules, you may bring your own food to a traditional beer garden if you sit at the bare-wood self-service tables, but not at the cloth-covered served ones, and drinks must always be bought on site. The grounds under the Chinesischer Turm in the Englischer Garten and in the Hirschgarten park in Neuhausen are the classic settings.

Viktualienmarkt

The permanent open-air food market a block southeast of Marienplatz: cheesemongers, charcuterie, honey, herbs and spices, fish counters, game and a wall of fruit. In the middle sits Munich's most central beer garden, which rotates through the city's six big breweries — Augustiner, Hacker-Pschorr, Löwenbräu, Hofbräu, Paulaner and Spaten — so the beer on tap changes with the calendar. The market stalls are shut on Sundays under German trading law.

Schweinshaxe and Kaiserschmarrn

Roast pork knuckle with lacquered crackling and a potato or bread dumpling is the archetypal Bavarian main, and the portions are honestly larger than most Canadians expect — two people sharing one is normal and nobody minds. Finish with Kaiserschmarrn, a torn-up sweet pancake dusted with icing sugar and served with plum compote, or Dampfnudel. The old town's traditional Wirtshäuser and the streets of Haidhausen do these properly.

If you only have 48 hours

Two days in Munich

1

Morning

Marienplatz first, before the tour groups: the Neues Rathaus facade, and the Glockenspiel in its tower, which performs a couple of times a day — the times are posted on the building and on the city's own site. Then walk two minutes southeast to the Viktualienmarkt for Weisswurst and a Brezn while it is still morning. Every S-Bahn line plus the U3 and U6 converge underneath Marienplatz, so this is the easiest possible start point.

2

Late morning

Stay on foot inside the ring — no transit needed. North up Residenzstrasse to the Residenz, the Wittelsbach city palace with the Antiquarium and the treasury, then out into the Hofgarten. Loop back west along the pedestrianised Kaufingerstrasse and Neuhauser Strasse past the Frauenkirche's twin onion domes to Karlsplatz, which everyone calls Stachus.

3

Midday

U3 or U6 one stop from Marienplatz to Odeonsplatz, then walk into the Englischer Garten. The Eisbach channel runs under the Prinzregentenstrasse bridge at the southern tip of the park, and it is worth a look, but do not build the day around the famous standing wave: it disappeared after routine river dredging in late 2025 and had not been restored when this was checked, so surfers are a bonus rather than a certainty. Carry on north through the park to the Chinesischer Turm beer garden for lunch under the chestnuts.

4

Afternoon

The Museenlinie, bus 100, runs between Hauptbahnhof and Ostbahnhof and threads past the Pinakotheken, the Haus der Kunst and the Lehel museums; alternatively take the U3 or U6 to Universität and walk into the Kunstareal in Maxvorstadt for the Alte Pinakothek, the Pinakothek der Moderne and the NS-Dokumentationszentrum on the site of the former Nazi party headquarters.

5

Late afternoon

Two ways to finish, both easy. Tram 17 runs west to the Schloss Nymphenburg stop, for the summer palace with its canal, park and porcelain works. Or take the U3 north to Olympiazentrum for the tented roof of the 1972 Olympic park, the tower and BMW Welt next door.

6

Evening

Back to Marienplatz and walk south into the Gärtnerplatz and Glockenbachviertel for dinner, or east over the Ludwigsbrücke past the Deutsches Museum into Haidhausen. Munich's U-Bahn stops for a few hours overnight — later at weekends than midweek — with night trams and N-prefixed buses taking over, so check the last train if you are staying out.

Worth a day

Day trips from Munich

Dachau Concentration Camp Memorial

Opened by the SS in 1933 and the model for the camp system that followed. Take the S2 from any central S-Bahn station — Hauptbahnhof, Karlsplatz, Marienplatz, Isartor — to Dachau Bahnhof, then bus 726 from outside the station to the memorial gate. Admission is free, no booking is needed, and the site opens daily except 24 December. Allow at least half a day; the grounds are large, flat and mostly gravel and open sky, and it is a memorial rather than a sight, so do not stack it with anything cheerful afterwards.

Neuschwanstein and Hohenschwangau

Ludwig II's hillside fantasy castle, inscribed on the UNESCO World Heritage list in July 2025 as part of 'The Palaces of King Ludwig II of Bavaria', with his father's yellow childhood castle facing it across the valley. Regional trains run from München Hauptbahnhof to Füssen, some direct and some changing at Buchloe, and regional buses continue from outside Füssen station to Hohenschwangau village. A Bayern-Ticket covers both legs. Book the timed guided tour online well in advance — entry is by tour only, there is no wandering — collect the physical ticket at the village Ticket Center, and allow for the steep uphill walk or the shuttle from village to castle gate. This is a full day out of Munich, not an afternoon.

Salzburg

Mozart's birthplace over the Austrian border: the baroque old town, the Getreidegasse, Mirabell gardens and the funicular up to the Hohensalzburg fortress. The Meridian and BRB regional services from München Hauptbahnhof via Rosenheim and Freilassing are covered by the Bayern-Ticket all the way to Salzburg Hauptbahnhof, or take a faster Railjet or EuroCity if you would rather buy a normal ticket and save an hour. Austria is also on the euro, so nothing changes in your wallet — but you are crossing an international border and German checks have been reinstated at times, so carry your passport.

Travelling with family

Bringing parents, or kids

Munich is comfortably the easiest of the three German cities for older parents, and the reason is specific: MVG has fitted lifts or ramps at essentially every one of its ninety-odd U-Bahn stations, which is unusual anywhere in Europe and means you can plan a whole day without a staircase surprise. The S-Bahn is mostly step-free too, trams are low-floor, and the central old town inside the ring is small, flat and largely pedestrianised, so Marienplatz, the Frauenkirche, the Residenz and the Viktualienmarkt make one gentle loop. The honest catch is the surface: the Altstadt is genuinely cobbled, with rough setts around Marienplatz, Residenzstrasse and the market lanes that jar wheelchairs, walkers and wheeled suitcases, and the Frauenkirche and Neues Rathaus towers involve stairs or a narrow lift with queues. The Englischer Garten is wonderful and enormous — flat gravel paths, endless grass — but bigger than it looks on a map, with limited shade on the main routes, which matters because Munich summers now bring real heat waves and almost nothing outside modern hotels is air conditioned. With children, the reliable wins are the Deutsches Museum on its island in the Isar (roughly half the building has reopened while a long modernisation grinds on, and the open half includes aviation, space, robotics and a dedicated Kids' Kingdom), Tierpark Hellabrunn, the Olympiapark, and the gravel banks of the Isar at the Flaucher, which cost nothing. Do not promise anyone the Eisbach surfers: the standing wave vanished after river dredging in late 2025 and had not been restored when this was checked. Be blunt about Oktoberfest if the trip falls in that window: the Theresienwiese is shoulder-to-shoulder, the tents are extremely loud and heavily drunk by mid-afternoon, and it is not a young-children environment past early evening. The workarounds are weekday mornings and the quieter, old-fashioned Oide Wiesn section, which charges its own entry and is not staged every year — but also accept that the whole city is full and priced accordingly for those two and a half weeks. One last surprise for visiting relatives: shops are closed by law on Sundays, including the Viktualienmarkt stalls.

Before you go

Practical basics

Currency

Germany uses the euro — no separate Bavarian anything, and Austria across the border on the Salzburg day trip is on the euro too. The thing to watch is dynamic currency conversion: card machines and ATMs will offer to charge you in Canadian dollars at a rate they set. Decline every time and choose euro. Skip the freestanding Euronet ATMs around the Hauptbahnhof and Marienplatz; use a machine inside a bank branch instead.

Cards and cash

Bavaria is noticeably more cash-first than Berlin, and this catches Canadians out. Beer gardens, market stalls, small traditional Wirtshäuser, Imbiss counters, bakeries and many Oktoberfest tents are cash-only or Girocard-only and will not take a Visa or Mastercard, however contactless your card is. No German business is required by law to accept cards. Draw euro notes on arrival and keep coins for toilets — station and Wiesn toilets both want them.

Tipping

Round up rather than calculate a percentage; five to ten per cent is generous for good table service. Crucially, German card terminals usually have no tip prompt, so you state the total you want charged before the server taps the machine. In a beer garden's self-service section you are not tipping at all, but at a served table you do. Cash tips handed to the server are preferred because they actually reach them.

Power and plugs

Type F Schuko sockets — round, recessed, with earth clips on the rim — and Type C europlugs fit the same opening. The supply is 230 volts at 50 hertz, about double Canada's 120 volts. Check the label on anything with a heating element: '100–240V' means an adapter is enough, anything marked 120V only needs a transformer or should stay home. A grounded North American plug will not sit properly in a recessed Schuko socket, so bring the right adapter rather than a generic one.

Water and language

Tap water is safe and heavily regulated under the Trinkwasserverordnung; Munich's comes largely from the Mangfall valley and the Alpine foothills and is genuinely good. Restaurants will still steer you to bottled water — Leitungswasser is a legitimate request but can be politely refused, so do not count on it. The language is German with a strong Bavarian accent and vocabulary: the greeting is Grüss Gott rather than Guten Tag, Servus works for hello and goodbye, and a beer is a Mass if you want the litre. English is fine across the city; on the Füssen and Neuschwanstein run, less so.

Safety and hazards

Munich has among the lowest street-crime rates of any large German city and generally feels calm at night, with two caveats. Oktoberfest is the exception that proves the rule: pickpocketing and phone theft spike sharply on the Theresienwiese and on the U-Bahn and S-Bahn services feeding it, the lost-property office fills with wallets and passports, and alcohol-related incidents dominate. Leave your passport in the hotel safe and carry only what you need. The second is mundane but catches more visitors than crime ever will: Munich's bike lanes frequently run along the pavement, marked only by a different colour or texture of paving, and cyclists travel fast and do not expect to brake. Look down before you step sideways to take a photo, especially around Marienplatz, Sendlinger Tor and the Englischer Garten entrances.

When to go

Timing your trip

Two fixtures dominate the calendar and both distort prices. Oktoberfest fills the Theresienwiese from late September into the first days of October, and central hotel rooms disappear months ahead of it. The Münchner Christkindlmarkt takes over Marienplatz and the Rindermarkt from late November through to Christmas Eve; in years when it opens before Advent begins it closes for the day on Totensonntag. Outside those two, alpine day trips want the snow-free hiking window from late spring through early autumn, and mountain railways cut back or suspend service in the shoulder seasons for maintenance, so check the individual operator rather than a general travel page. Winter here means genuine alpine snow within reach of a regional train, which Berlin cannot offer. And as everywhere in Germany, shops close on Sundays; transit, museums and restaurants do not.

Do it on a budget

Smart-money tips

Two official guest cards: the München Card, which is discount-based, and the München City Pass, which includes entry at participating sights. Both are bookable either as Zone M only or as the whole network out to Zone 6 — and only the whole-network version includes the airport S-Bahn. Sold online and at the tourist information office on Marienplatz, with the Card also available from MVG ticket machines.
The Bavarian state collections run a token flat Sunday admission across a long list of houses, among them the Alte Pinakothek, Pinakothek der Moderne, Museum Brandhorst, Glyptothek and Staatliche Antikensammlungen. Special exhibitions are excluded and still charge in full, so check which category the thing you actually want to see falls into before you turn up on a Sunday.
The Dachau Concentration Camp Memorial Site charges no admission and requires no reservation; only the guided tour is ticketed. For the airport run specifically, the Airport-City-Day-Ticket comes in single and group versions and can beat buying separate airport and city tickets, particularly for a group.

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FAQ

Munich — common questions

How do I get to Munich?

This is the straightforward one: Lufthansa and Air Canada both fly Toronto Pearson to Munich nonstop, though frequency and whether the route runs through the depths of winter vary by season, so confirm the schedule when you book. Eastbound the flight runs roughly eight and a half hours, a little longer coming home. You arrive at Munich Airport Franz Josef Strauss (MUC); Star Alliance carriers, Lufthansa and Air Canada among them, use Terminal 2. The rail link is S-Bahn München lines S1 and S8 from the station in the terminal complex — the S8 runs into town via the east (Ostbahnhof, Marienplatz, Hauptbahnhof) and the S1 via the north and west (Moosach, Laim) — and they alternate, so either one drops you on the central trunk line. One real trap: the S1 splits at Neufahrn, with one portion continuing to the airport and the other to Freising. Read the destination display on the carriage you are standing in front of, not just the platform indicator, or you'll end up in Freising with a flight to catch.

How do I get around Munich?

MVG runs the U-Bahn, trams and buses inside the city; S-Bahn München (DB) runs the S-Bahn; the MVV — Münchner Verkehrs- und Tarifverbund — is the fare union that makes one ticket valid across all of it. Zones are Zone M, covering the entire city of Munich plus a slice of the surrounding area, then numbered rings outward to the edge of the network, with the whole-network ticket sold as M–6. The airport sits in Zone 5, so an airport-to-city ticket is M–5, and the Airport-City-Day-Ticket exists in single and group versions for exactly that journey plus a day in town. Dachau is in Zone 1, so that day trip is M–1, not a Zone M ticket. One quirk worth knowing: a number of stops sit on a zone boundary and count as belonging to either zone, so the cheaper option can apply depending on which direction you are travelling. The machine works this out for you, but it explains why two apparently similar journeys price differently.

When is the best time to visit Munich?

Two fixtures dominate the calendar and both distort prices. Oktoberfest fills the Theresienwiese from late September into the first days of October, and central hotel rooms disappear months ahead of it. The Münchner Christkindlmarkt takes over Marienplatz and the Rindermarkt from late November through to Christmas Eve; in years when it opens before Advent begins it closes for the day on Totensonntag. Outside those two, alpine day trips want the snow-free hiking window from late spring through early autumn, and mountain railways cut back or suspend service in the shoulder seasons for maintenance, so check the individual operator rather than a general travel page. Winter here means genuine alpine snow within reach of a regional train, which Berlin cannot offer. And as everywhere in Germany, shops close on Sundays; transit, museums and restaurants do not.