Travel to Munich means arriving at Munich International Airport, MUC, in easy proximity to Munich, the capital of Germany’s Bavaria province. In terms of overall passenger traffic, it is the second-busiest German airport after Frankfurt Airport, handling around 44 million passengers. It’s the 7th busiest airport in Europe. The airport lies some 18 miles northeast of Munich, about 40 minutes from Munich’s city center. Train departures to the city are frequent (usually at least every 10 minutes) and relatively cheap in cost, about $10 USD.
The airport is known as one of the world’s most efficient — that is, in terms of flights leaving and arriving on time. It has two passenger terminals, and handles wide-body aircraft, including the Airbus A380. However, be advised that the connection time between the international and domestic terminals can be as long as 30 minutes. Indeed, you may very well find yourself at MUC for a bit of a layover. But be heartened. The airport has plenty of things to do.
MUC Amenities
Wi-Fi is utterly free. Then, in an homage to Oktoberfest, MUC has its own on-site brewery, known as the Airbrau. There, you can also obtain ethnically coordinated food items, like sausage and sauerkraut. There’s even live music every so often.
For the more adventurous, if not athletic, types, Munich is home to one of the world’s largest man-made standing waves. Surf & Style, gives visitors a chance to demonstrate their surfing skills between flights. For more typical amusements, the airport’s Visitors’ Park features a playground and mini-golf course, and plenty of older aircraft are on display. Like Munich and Germany in general, the airport goes long in the wintertime with its traditional Christmas market. At the airport at Xmas, as many as 50 market stalls offer handicrafts, gingerbread and mulled wine, etc. During this season it is not unusual to see a field of Christmas trees and an ice skating rink at this airport.
Travel To Munich: Top Things to Do
Marienplatz
Marienplatz, a vast public square with origins in the 11thcentury, is located just in front of the Neues Rathaus, Munich’s town hall, in the center of the city. You’ll quickly discover that this central location is actually brimming with locals and tourists. They’re a number of sub-attractions. Those who visit Munich in December will see the plaza’s several Christmas markets in full swing.
Neues Rathaus
Munich’s town hall is one of those monuments not be missed while visiting the city. It was built in 1874. Barely 20 years later, it was expanded. Then expanded several more times. The building is now more than 300 feet long, featuring more than 400 rooms for exploration and discovery. While here exploring the building, visitors often reap the fringe benefit of getting scenic views of the Alps mountains on clear days.
Alte Pinakothek: Travel to Munich
Munich’s Alte Pinakothek, dating from 1836, is one of the oldest art galleries in the world. Its design invokes Renaissance styles and motifs. It’s filled with collections of paintings dating from the 1200s to the 1800s. See multiple paintings there from the masters, including Peter Paul Rubens, Van Dyck, and Albrecht Durer. One can also view creations by da Vinci, Titian, and Rembrandt at this gallery.
Englischer Garten: Travel to Munich
Created in the 18th century and covering 370 hectares (nearly 1,000 acres) of land, this park has an expanse of lawns, waterways, lakes, tree groves, and pastures. Some of the sites here are especially stunning, like the Japanese teahouse, the Chinese Tower and the Kew Gardens’ pagoda. Another feature of the park: the surfable, man-made Eisbach river.
BMW Museum
The BMW Museum, co-located with BMW’s World Headquarters, was designed and built by Karl Schwanzer, a major Austrian architect of the 20thcentury. It was completed in 1973. It comprises spacious showrooms that coolly and casually guide the visitor on a journey through the BMW brand’s cultural and technical development. BMW-the-company actually derives from three distinct German companies, individually focused on different types of engines for different types of motorized transport, including aircraft. Also known as Bayerische Motoren Werke, it descended from the coalescence of 1) Rapp Motorenwerke, an aircraft engine manufacturer, which became Bayerische Motorenwerke in 1916; 2) Bayerische Flugzeugwerke (BFw), Bavaria; and Fahrzeugfabrik Eisenach in Thuringia. At the BMW headquarters and museum, multimedia presentations and exhibits reveal a wide variety of aircraft, vintage cars, turbines, engines, and motorcycles.
Oktoberfest: Travel to Munich
One of the largest beer festivals in the world, Munich’s annual Oktoberfest lasts well over two weeks. Typically, more than 7 million visitors attend, consuming more than 7.5 million liters of beer. At least 14 tents have been established permanently at Theresienwiese, the festival site and its fairgrounds located in an open space in Munich’s borough of Ludwigsvorstadt-Isarvorstadt in the city’s western sector. Whether you luxuriate in the huge variety of beers available at the festival, or take advantage of its carnival rides and atmosphere, it’s really a special experience and definitely a source of bragging rights.
Travel to Munich: Visitors Tips
Munich has numerous iconic landmarks and attractions. For example, one of the best known attractions is Munich’s unique Oktoberfest festival (see below) during the month of October. The best time to visit is during the early Spring period — roughly from March through May. During this time, the city is not too crowded –one can explore many landmarks and attractions without facing the long lines of visitors that other sites commonly offer. Of course, you can elect some other period to travel there. For example, in the fall is the legendary Oktoberfest. But be sure to pack your bags with extra items of clothing. Average temperatures at that time range from 40 to 50 degrees F.
Navigating Munich
Although Munich is a large city, some areas can easily be explored on foot. The city also has an excellent public transportation system comprising the subway (U-Bahn), light rail (S-Bahn), trams (Strassenbahn), and a large fleet of modern buses. You can buy tickets for all of them from vending machines in the U-Bahn and S-Bahn stations. Of course, the city’s traditional cream-colored taxis are available, too, but are expensive. One option is bicycling. The city is extremely bike-friendly. Bikes can be rented at a number of places. Bike tours are plentiful—such as at Radius Tours, GMbH.
+ Large numbers of Germans deploy English readily and skillfully.
+ Keep in mind that cyclists typically have the right of way over car drivers. It happens that the former are not shy about asserting this right.
+ Many of Munich’s restaurants, bars, and attractions stake cash payments only. So, for most visitors, it’s a good idea to carry cash with you.
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