Ireland day 1575. Tuesday 20 January 2026- Munich

Today’s summary	Got up relatively early and had breakfast in hotel. Walked to Alterding S-Bahn station and caught a 10 am train to Munich Hbf. Devised a walking tour round Munich to see English Garden and Monopteros, the Eisback wave, Residenz and Marieplatz. Amazing architecture and fantastic weather. Got a snack aught train back at the Hbf then caught the S2 back again. Went swimming and to the spa again in the evening, dinner in the burger bar, and spoke to Val in Switzerland (good skiing) later on.
Today’s weather	Brilliantly clear cold and sunny all day. now ind. Appx minus 3c

Today’s overview location (The blue mark shows the location of my route)		Close-up location (The blue line shows where I walked) (Click button below to download GPX of today’s walk as recorded, or see interactive map at bottom with elevations corrected): Munich Exploration

Commentary

When I woke up this morning it was cold and clear, and it stayed that early all day – below freezing but brilliantly sunny. As I got up, the sun was just rising, casting a surreal orange glow over the frozen fields. A great start to the day.

Once I managed to drag myself away from the view out of the window, and into a semi human condition again, I went down to get breakfast in the hotel restaurant. Then it was back to the room, pack the rucksack with sore warm clothes, and off out to explore Munich.

I started out by taking the S2-Bahn light rail train to Munich Hauptbahnhof (Hbf) from our nearest station, Alterding. The station is about quarter of an hour’s walk from here, through some fields. I had to wait about ten minutes for the train – but that was OK as it gave me time to fiddle around with the Deutschebahn app to buy the ticket. The train eventually showed up and it was a straightforward hour-long ride to the Hbf.

For a major German city, the Hbf station – which hosts dozens of hourly departure to innumerable destinations as far afield as Prague and Venice – is no great shakes. OK it’s one up from Connolly but really only in scale – everything else is a bit downbeat. L Then when you come out of the station into the real world, you find yourself in the middle of a huge building site. A bit of an unimpressive introduction to the city.

But luckily that was the low-point. The rest of my visit to Munich was fantastic. I’d used the hour on the inbound train to research the top things I wanted to see in my brief visit, and worked out a walking route to connect them all.

I started out in the English Garden – a huge long narrow green space which flanks the Eisbach river as it flows north out of the city. The park is so called because it was designed in 1789 to resemble an English country estate rather than the more formal French style which had been popular up to then. Ironically, it was designed by an American and a German – no English in sight.

I walked through the park to the Monopteros – the temple-like structure on top of a hillock which you can see in the photos below. From up there, fantastic views of the city rolled out in all directions and with the bright sun and complete absence of wind, you could almost forget it was the middle of winter.

From there I walked back towards the city, following the banks of the river and then taking in the “surfer wave” near the bridge which marks the southern boundary of the park. It’s photographed and described in the picture section below.

Once out of the park again, I’d wanted to visit the Art Gallery and National Museum, but both were “geschlossen” until tomorrow. So I moved to plan B instead and had a quick look at an exhibition of Polaroid photos taken by Helmut Newton. It was in a building on a street named after Justus von Leibig – a scientist whose name will be familiar to anyone who ever tried to make distilled water in their chemistry lessons.

After that, I continued my wanderings and ended up at Die Residenz. This is a massive city palace, originally constructed in about 1508, which was the home of the Bavarian Government and of its dukes until 1908. Since 1920 it’s been a museum open to the general public and it’s a magnificent building. If I’d had longer, I would have gone in for a look around. But I didn’t, so I contented myself with a look at the buildings from the outside, then pressed on with my explorations.

Next, I found myself at Marienplatz. Munich’s main town square and dominated by the giant Neues Rathaus (“New Town Hall”) along its northern side. It’s a busy spot and it reminded me a lot of central Zagreb, which I visited last year. In fact the whole of Munich felt a lot more like Zagreb than London (or Dublin, for that matter). A real Central European city.

From there I wandered round the corner to the Frauenkirch – an imposing structure with instantly-recognisable (to a Münchner at any rate) onion-shaped domes on the top of its two towers. Inside it boasts the largest church-hall in the world. Unfortunately an interior visit was another casualty of my limited time. But it will still be there for a visit at some future date.

That more or less marked the end of my explorations. I “closed the loop” on the route by walking back to the Hbf. There, I got a cold pizza-type thing with a cup of coffee and a doughnut by way of a belated lunch. The coffee and cake were ok but the pizza was horrible. In the end I threw most of it away. It was cold and greasy and generally unpleasant.

Thereafter I caught the S2-Bahn back to Altenerding and walked the short final leg to the hotel.

This evening was a carbon copy of yesterday. A swim in the hotel pool, then a bit of relaxation in the spa. Rounded off with a burger-dinner then a video call to Val in Switzerland. She’d had a great day and so did I. So I suspect we will both be going to bed tonight pretty tired, but generally contented with how our days have panned out.

Today’s photos (click to enlarge)


S2-Bahn underground station at Munich Hauptbahnhof	Here I am, enjoying the sun in Alter Botanische Garten

The Monopteros in the English Garden. It was built in `833 by Leo von Klenze – as far as I can tell it has only ever had an ornamental purpose. By the way a “Monopteros” is a Greek temple-style building, basically a circular domed rood supported by colonnades of pillars but no solid walls	The “surfer wave” in the Schwabingerbach river, where it enters the English Garden at Eisbach. The standing wave has become a popular spot for surfers to practice their static surfing technique. Though apparently not today

At the Residenz – once the official palace of the Bavarian monarchs, but more recently since 1920 it has been a public museum. I would have liked to have a look around but it’s huge and would probably have taken all day. I just didn’t have enough time	The 15th century Frauenkirche – it’s the tallest building in Munich, apparently and you can climb to the top of the south tower to admire the view. Another sight that had to be foregone in the interests of time, unfortunately

Marienplatz. Munich’s main city square and one of its most iconic sights. There is a famous mechanical glockenspiel that does its stuff at 11am ever day. Great for visitors but I guess anyone living here must just have to get used to it