Englischer Garten, Munich

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What a surprise and delight to find the English Garden in Munich. The English Garden (Englischer Garten), not only is gigantic in size but is a source for many activities from sightseeing, relaxing, picnicing,paddle boating, nude sunbathing and even surfing. The park is one of the largest parks in Europe and is bigger than Central Park in New York City.

There are some fascinating monuments spread throughout the park. Montepteros appears as a Greek Temple in a small rise in the park ( See picture below). A large artificial lake is one of the most striking features.

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We did not get a chance to see much of the garden area, but read a lot about it and hoped we had more time to see the sights inside the huge area. It is an area of 1.4 square miles; or 910 acres, or 370 hectares, but no matter how to describe it-that is large. It has a famed Chinese turm with a beer garden, Japanese tea house, and so much more for all to enjoy the variety.
These pictures of are the Hofgarten with its French style temple from 1615 and arcades along the one side

The Englischer Garten (English Garden) is of course huge, and I have just seen a very small part of it. As I visited in August, it was very nice in the sunshine, so green and wide. Although there were many people, it did not feel very crowded.
We had something to eat in the beer garden near the Chinese Tower (that's where I took the picture I used as main picture for this page - sorry, water instead of beer ;-) ) and then strolled around for a bit. We also saw the surfers at Eisbach (see Local Custom tip).

Unfortunately there was no time to see more, but things I missed and would like to see closer on a later visit are the Monopteros (a Greek style round temple), the Japanese tea gardens, and Kleinhesseloher See (a big artificial lake).

Some facts and history: The garden is 3,75sqkm big and was called "English" because the style of English gardens was taken as model. The original name was "Theodor's garden" after the then elector.
Construction took place from 1789 to 1832. Originally it was created to give members of the Bavarian army a place to relax and also to train farming abilities, but it was soon decided that it should also be open to the general public.

The Chinese Tower was built in 1790. Since then it has burnt down several times, but was always reconstructed to look exactly like the original. It is made of wood and 25m high, its model was the tower in the Kew Gardens in London.
To me, the tower looked quite interesting because I had never seen a tower like that before.

It is located in the Englischer Garten, near the big beer garden. I think that there was an interesting contrast between the Oktoberfest atmosphere there and the exotic architecture of the tower.

The ice-river (Eisbach) is crossing the English Garden. Even during winter you will find at some spots there surfers surfing waves at that small river. Its great and many people are normally there watching. Even some TV-documentations were done on those crazy people and their hobby. My insider tip for Munich.

This small Greek-Roman style open temple is a great vantage point for views across the Englischer Garten and beyond. Built up on an artificial hill, a brisk walk in the park and up the hill is worth it, even if a thunderstorm is brewing like when I visited!

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This park is huge - long and narrow stretching north east from the city centre. The city’s lungs.

We entered at ..., and then headed in towards the city centre enjoying the sunshine and relatively uncrowded quiet of a late morning Easter Saturday. Having been to the city centre end, we then doubled back for lunch in the bier garten and the Chinesischer Turm.

One thing to watch out for (see local customs tip) is the surfing right by the bridge on ..... Yes, city centre surfing.

By the time we left the park - about 2pm - it was getting busy, so we’d enjoyed it at its best.

It's really a sight to see. The wave is about 1m high, there's very little maneuvering space. Some of the boys on their boogie boards or even in short kajaks manage to ride for a couple minutes, while others are swept away almost instantly!

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This lovely massive garden in the middle of Munich as a great place to go to and just relax, go for a lovely walk, jog, run or cycle. When visiting the garden, you feel like you have stepped into a forest and it is difficult to believe that you are actually in the centre of town. Over weekends the place if visited by the locals, they have umpha bands playing and certain weekends you can have a tea ceremony at the chinese tower.

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Munich´s famous 900 acre park has shaded paths, brooks, ponds and swans and is best known for its four beer gardens (Chinesischer Turm, Seehaus, Hirschau, Aumeister) and nude sunbathers!!!The park stretches from the center of the city (near Odeonsplatz) to the northern city border.Its 4 times bigger than central parc that menas that germans dont have a land problem at all ...