Munich travel guide: river surfers, leberkäse, the brewery beer halls, where to base

Munich is the Bavarian capital that most travelers come for two postcards: the beer halls and the surfers on the Eisbach standing wave. Both are as advertised. Two days for the city if those are the goal. Use it as a rail hub for the Alps south or Vienna east.

This guide treats Munich as a rail-trip hub: a day or two for the city, then south for the Alps or east for Vienna. The map and the wider pin set sit underneath.

On this page

• Getting in from the airport
• Where to stay: a rail base or the slower trip
• The Eisbach river surfers
• Leberkäse, the Munich snack
• The brewery beer halls
• Festivals and big annual events
• Museums for a half day
• Neuschwanstein as a day trip

Getting in from the airport

Munich Airport (MUC) sits about 35 km north-east of the Hauptbahnhof and is well-connected by S-Bahn. The train is the practical default unless you have heavy luggage or a late arrival. Buy the ticket from the red vending machines on the platform (English language option is on the screen). The same ticket covers any continuing tram or U-Bahn for the rest of the day if you pick the day-pass version.

Mode	Time	Cost	When to use
S-Bahn S1 or S8	40 to 50 min	€13.50 single, or €15.50 day pass that also covers Munich-area transit	The default. Both lines run from the airport (one terminal-side platform serves both) to Hauptbahnhof, Marienplatz, and Ostbahnhof every 10 minutes. Roughly the same time either way. S1 swings west, S8 swings east
Lufthansa Express Bus	45 to 60 min	€13 single	Direct to Hauptbahnhof with luggage racks. Less frequent than the S-Bahn but a single seat the whole way. Useful if you are traveling with a suitcase that does not love S-Bahn stairs
Uber / FreeNow / taxi	40 to 60 min	€65 to €90 to the center	Late arrival, heavy luggage, or a group splitting the fare. The taxi rank outside arrivals is reliable. Uber and FreeNow work too but pickup happens at a marked lot a short walk from the terminal

The S-Bahn day pass is the move for almost every trip into town because it pays for itself within two Munich rides. Validate it once on first use. The system runs on the honor principle but the ticket inspectors are real and the spot fine for an unstamped or expired ticket is €60.

If you are heading straight to Therme Erding (the spa-day hack covered in the spa-day cross-list), the smarter move is a taxi from MUC. The train route to Erding goes via the center and adds an hour. From MUC, Erding is 10 to 15 minutes by taxi, about €25 to €35.

Where to stay: a rail base or the slower trip

The choice of base is the same choice it is in any rail-hub city. The first kind of trip uses Munich as a stop between trains. You want a hotel by the Hauptbahnhof, you want a bed, a shower, and a working luggage room. The second kind of trip uses Munich as the destination and rewards a base in a quieter neighborhood.

Where	Property	Why pick it	Trade-off
Hauptbahnhof	Aloft by Marriott Munich	Five minutes walk to Munich Central Station. Clean, modern, basic, fair price, laundry on-site. The right base when you are using Munich as the rail hub	The Hauptbahnhof area reads a little rough at street level between dusk and dawn (the standard German city-station mix). The hotel itself is fine. The immediate block is not the slow-coffee street
Schwabing	Andaz Munich Schwabinger Tor by Hyatt	The dressed-up alternative. Design-hotel style, on the U6 line ten minutes from the center, the rooms are a step up. Worth it if Munich is the trip rather than the connection	More expensive. Further from the station, so the rail-stop shape works less cleanly. Schwabing is the right neighborhood for the slower version of the trip

The Aloft is the booking I would do nine times out of ten. The on-site laundry is the underrated detail. If you are on a longer rail trip and you need clean clothes before the train south, that one feature is the reason to book.

The Eisbach river surfers

The Eisbachwelle is a standing wave in the river that runs along the southern edge of the Englischer Garten, formed where the Eisbach water flows over a built-in concrete step. It runs year-round. Surfers wear wetsuits in winter and shorts in summer, queue politely on either bank, drop into the wave one at a time, ride for about ten seconds, fall off, climb out, walk back to the queue. The whole loop takes about a minute and a half.

The right way to do it is not to surf (the wave is for experienced board surfers and the rocks are real) but to watch. There is a low wall along the Prinzregentenstraße side that is the best viewing position. You can stand or sit there for an hour and not get bored. Bring a beer. People do.

The kiosk for the beer is Fräulein Grüneis, a small green hut on Lerchenfeldstraße at the southwest corner of the park. Coffee, beer, simple snacks, a few benches. Order the Helles, walk it the two minutes back to the wall over the wave, and that is the afternoon. The kiosk is also a navigation anchor if you are meeting friends at the Eisbach. It is the easiest spot to find.

A second river-surfing spot, Floßlände, sits south of the city near Thalkirchen and is the more beginner-friendly wave. It only runs in summer when water levels are high, but if you want a softer wave to actually surf yourself, this is the one. The S-Bahn or the U-Bahn line U3 to Thalkirchen drops you within walking distance.

Leberkäse, the Munich snack

Leberkäse is the Bavarian meatloaf, served warm in thick slices in a Semmel (a small bread roll) with sweet mustard. The name translates as "liver cheese" and contains neither. It costs three to five euros at any Metzgerei (butcher) in the city, takes 90 seconds at the counter, and is the right snack to eat on a bench in the sun or on a tram between sights.

The default move is Vinzenzmurr, the Munich butcher chain with branches around the center (Tal, Schäfflerhof, the area around the Hauptbahnhof, plus dozens of suburban ones). Ask for "ein Leberkäs-Semmel" and they slice you a warm wedge into a bread roll. Sweet mustard (süßer Senf) is the standard pairing.

The sit-down version is Bazi's Schlemmerkucherl in the Glockenbachviertel, which does a plate version with potato salad. The market version is the leberkäse counter inside the Viktualienmarkt (the central open-air food market that anchors the south side of Marienplatz). You eat it standing up at one of the high tables between the cheese stall and the beer garden in the middle of the market.

The brewery beer halls

The Munich brewery beer halls are tourist attractions and worth doing anyway. The Hofbräuhaus is the famous one and probably the least authentic. It is also the one I keep coming back to. The trick is to pick one beer hall per visit rather than try to do the circuit. The rooms are large, the meals are heavy, and the second one will not improve on the first.

Brewery hall	What to drink	What to eat	Hours (approx.)	Price band
Hofbräuhaus München	Hofbräu Original (Helles). A Maß (1 L) is the standard order	Schweinshaxe (roast pork knuckle), Weisswurst (in the morning), pretzels	09:00 to 24:00 daily	€€
Augustiner-Großgaststätten	Augustiner Helles, the unfiltered Edelstoff if you want the upgrade	Schweinsbraten, Brotzeit boards	11:00 to 24:00 (Sun from 10)	€€
Augustiner Klosterwirt	Same Augustiner pours in a smaller room behind the Frauenkirche	Bavarian classics, smaller menu	11:00 to 23:00	€€
Schneider Bräuhaus	Schneider Weisse (wheat beer). This is the wheat-beer specialty room of the center	Weisswurst, Kalbskäsleberwurst, weisswurst breakfast	09:00 to 23:30	€€
Spatenhaus an der Oper	Spaten Hell and Franziskaner Weissbier	Refined Bavarian: Tafelspitz, fish, plus a more serious wine list	11:00 to 24:00	€€€
Löwenbräukeller	Löwenbräu Original. Large beer garden in summer	Classics, plus the Lent-season Triumphator strong beer in February	10:00 to 24:00	€€
Paulaner am Nockherberg	Paulaner Salvator in March, Helles year-round. The home of the Lenten Salvator celebrations	Bavarian classics in a much larger room than the center options	11:00 to 23:00	€€

Hofbräuhaus is my pick despite the lack of authenticity. The room is grand in a way I cannot fully justify, the band plays every night, and you sit on a bench with strangers. Augustiner is what I would suggest to someone who wants the version locals also go to. Spatenhaus is the dressed-up dinner if the trip needs one. Schneider is the move for a Weisswurst breakfast (a long-Munich tradition: the white sausage is eaten before noon with sweet mustard and a Weissbier. The locals say the sausage should not hear the noon bell).

A note on Erdinger. Erdinger Weißbräu is brewed in Erding, 35 minutes north-east of Munich (and 10 to 15 minutes from MUC airport, also the home of Therme Erding). Erdinger pours at most Munich beer halls but does not have its own central flagship in town. The freshest pint of Erdinger you can buy is at the Gasthaus & Hotel zum ERDINGER Weißbräu in Erding old town. The spa-day cross-list covers that as part of the Munich/Erding section.

Festivals and big annual events

Munich runs a deeper festival calendar than the two events most American travelers know. Oktoberfest and the Christmas market are the headlines. The others are worth knowing about because they reshape the city on a smaller scale, and a couple of them are better trips than the ones that get the postcards.

Event	When	What to know
Oktoberfest	Mid-September to the first Sunday of October, 16 to 18 days	The Wiesn on Theresienwiese. A million-plus people, six brewery tents, the standing-on-benches version of Bavaria. Reserve a tent table months ahead or be at the gates by 9 a.m. on a weekend to hold a bench. One Oktoberfest is enough
Christmas market (Christkindlmarkt)	Late November to December 24	The central market at Marienplatz is compact and dense, but Munich is too big for the markets to read as one event. Good as a bonus if you are in town. Not the booking reason. If Christmas is the trip, train to Nuremberg
Frühlingsfest	Two weeks in late April and early May	The "spring Oktoberfest" on the same Theresienwiese, with two of the six big breweries running smaller tents. About a tenth the scale. Locals will tell you this is the better version: same beer, same food, no queue, no global crowd. Worth a serious look if your dates fall here
Tollwood Summer Festival	Most of June and July	Olympiapark Süd. Free entry, world-music stages, performance, a market of craft and food from across the world. Closer to a counter-culture summer festival than a Bavarian beer event. The version of Munich most travelers do not see
Tollwood Winter Festival	Late November to December 31	Theresienwiese. The market half is an organic-and-craft alternative to the Marienplatz Christkindlmarkt. The performance half runs theater, circus, and concerts inside heated tents. A New Year's Eve party on the final night
Starkbierfest	Two to three weeks in March	The "strong beer season." Paulaner am Nockherberg is the home: the bock beer Salvator is tapped each year with a political-roasting Derbleckung speech that the Bavarian premier is expected to sit through. Hofbräu, Löwenbräu, and Augustiner run their own Starkbier weeks in parallel
Auer Dult	Three nine-day runs (early May, late July, mid-October)	A traditional fair on Mariahilfplatz in the Au district. Antiques, crockery, rides, beer tents. Small, local, the opposite of Oktoberfest in scale and tone

The two that change a Munich trip the most are Oktoberfest (where the city becomes the event, hotels triple, every restaurant fills) and the Christmas market window (busy enough on weekends that you need to book ahead). Frühlingsfest and the Auer Dult are the local-scale alternatives that most American travelers never hear about and that are usually the better trips.

A note on hotel prices. Oktoberfest weekends are the most expensive hotel nights of the Munich year, sometimes by a factor of three or four. The Aloft I recommend in Where to stay for a normal Munich rail-stop sits at €130 to €180 most of the year and €400 to €600 during Oktoberfest. Either book months ahead or push the trip a week in either direction.

Museums for a half day

When the weather turns or the trip earns a slower morning, Munich's museum slate is the right deep bench. None of the below are pinned yet. This section is the index to write into the next admin pass.

• The Deutsches Museum on the Isar island is the science-and-engineering museum and the most-visited museum in Germany. Half a day at least. It is enormous.
• The Alte Pinakothek, Neue Pinakothek, and Pinakothek der Moderne are the three art museums in the Maxvorstadt cluster. The Alte for old masters, the Neue for nineteenth-century, the Moderne for twentieth-century plus design and architecture.
• BMW Welt and the BMW Museum are next door to each other at the north end of the city near the Olympiapark. The Welt is the brand exhibition (free) and the Museum is the company-history collection (paid).
• The Residenz München is the Wittelsbach royal palace in the center. Opulent rooms across four hundred years of Bavarian court life.
• The Lenbachhaus has the Blaue Reiter collection (Kandinsky, Marc, Münter, Macke), the small but worthwhile art-museum visit.
• The NS-Dokumentationszentrum on Brienner Strasse is the documentation center on the National-Socialist period in Munich. The city was the founding base of the Nazi party and the museum walks you through the history clearly and seriously. Not a casual visit, but the right context for what the rest of the city is built on top of.

Pair any one of these with a leberkäse stop on the way back and you have the right rainy-day Munich half-day.

Neuschwanstein as a day trip

Mad King Ludwig's fairy-tale castle on a hill above Hohenschwangau is the textbook Bavaria day trip from Munich. Two and a half hours each way by Bayern-Ticket regional train + bus combo. The catch is the booking.

Tickets are issued for a specific tour slot (35 min), and the slot sells out 2 to 4 weeks ahead in summer. Book on hohenschwangau.de before you book the train, not the other way around. ~€21 for the castle alone, ~€33 for the combined Neuschwanstein + Hohenschwangau (Ludwig's childhood castle on the next hill).

The path from the village up to the castle is a 30 to 40-minute walk uphill, or a 5 to 10 EUR horse-carriage ride, or a shuttle bus. Arrive at the village 1 to 1.5 hours before your tour slot to cover the climb plus a queue at the gate. The Marienbrücke bridge view (the photogenic side-on shot of the castle) is a 10-minute walk past the entrance and the reason most photos exist. Closed in winter and during ice events.

The train is two transfers from Munich Hbf (Munich → Buchloe → Füssen, then bus 73 or 78 to Hohenschwangau). A Bayern-Ticket day pass (~€29 for one person, €36 for two) covers the round trip. Most travelers buy through-tickets via bahn.de.

Tour-guide note: the castle interior tour is the only way in, ~35 minutes, audio-guide in your language. Don't pay a third-party "private guide" for Neuschwanstein. The tour is the tour, and your guide can't enter with you. Where a guided day-trip from Munich is worth the price is the logistics (train + bus + scheduled slot + lunch). If logistics aren't your thing, Gray Line / Viator-style day tours from Munich are €70 to €100 and worth it for the simplicity.