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On a warm sunny summer’s day, a visit to the local park can be a
wonderful way to spend a few lazy hours, doing nothing much except
watching people stroll by and soaking up the sunshine. This is true
even when you're on holiday. When you take the time to stroll around
a local park, you can enjoy a much more intimate glimpse of everyday
life in the city than can be offered in even the best museums.
Strolling in the Park
In Munich, the best park to go for some relaxation and people
watching is the Englischer Garden, or English Garden, in the centre
of the city. This green oasis covers 3.73 square kilometres and is
famous for being the largest park in Europe, bigger than Hyde Park
in London, or Central Park in New York. Commissioned by the
unpopular Electoral Prince Karl Theodor to quell public
dissatisfaction and laid out in the typically rambling English
style, the garden is one of the most popular recreational spots for
Munich residents, who come during their lunch breaks and on the
weekends to soak up the sun and the park’s festive atmosphere.
The English Garden stretches from the very heart of the city at the
Odeonsplatz, all the way to the open countryside to the north of the
metropolis. Bordered on one side by the mighty river Isar, the park
is a beautiful expanse of wide, rolling hills, neatly trimmed lawns
and shady groves, delineated by winding paths, pleasant streams and
ponds. The entire park is more or less evenly divided by the
mittlerer ring freeway, which separates the park into the more
domesticated southern part in the city and the wilder northern
section further into the countryside.
Most of the major sights in the English Garden are located in its
southern corners. Undoubtedly the most popular are the beer gardens.
There are four of these wonderful German institutions - Aumeister,
Chinese Tower, Hirschau and Seehaus. The Chinese Tower beer garden,
amazingly enough, surrounds an incongruous Chinese Tower known as Chinesischer Turm, which dates back to the park’s very beginnings in
1789.The beer garden is also known for being the largest in Bavaria,
with seating for over 7,000 happy drinkers. There are plenty of
grills selling food, but everyone is welcome to bring their own
grub, and its often cheaper than buying food. During the summers, a
live brass band plays nearby, accompanied by the clink of beer mugs
and laughter. If you have some free time during a trip to the city,
then this is definitely a great place to immerse yourself in German
life!
Another Oriental feature of the garden is a beautiful Japanese Tea
House located smack in the middle of a crowded duck pond. This
charming structure was built by Mitsuo Normura in 1972. Visitors can
watch a tea ceremony on the 2nd and 4th weekends of every month
between 3 and 5 pm.
One of the more notorious structures in the park is the Monopteros,
an artificial, ancient Greek pavilion crowning a small hill near the
beer garden. In the past, the pavilion was notorious for the
presence of drug peddlers, but in recent years the police have been
successful in chasing these undesirables away, and today the
Monopteros is a popular spot for photographers, as there is a great
view of the Munich skyline and the Alps in the distance.
Further to the north, the landscape has a more untamed feel. Huge
trees stand in deep groves alongside the parks, there are wide
meadows of wild flowers, foxes, rabbits and other wildlife disappear
between the trees. During some periods of the year, there are even
herds of sheep contently grazing in the park!
Pleasant
Pastimes In The Park
 On any given day, there are literally thousands of people taking
their leisure amidst the greenery — strolling with their dogs or
companions along the paths, picnicking or enjoying a game of cricket
on the lawns, whizzing by on bicycles, cantering along on horseback,
taking a dip in a pond or stream and even surfing along the rapids
on the Eisbach river, one of the tributaries to the Isar river.
Despite the large numbers of visitors, the park still feels
wonderfully spacious because of its vast size.
There are plenty of other things to see and do in the English
Garden. Most of the visitors are inevitably clustered around the
beer gardens, but there is another “attraction” a little
further from the more populated areas. Germans are famous for their relaxed attitude to nudity, and are
quite open to the idea of nude sunbathing. A number of wide sunny
lawns are dedicated to this practice, and on every sunny day, there
will be crowds of sunbathers stretched out on the grass. The
composition of sunbathers is amazingly varied: staid office women
and high powered executives still carrying briefcases taking some
sun during their lunch breaks companionably share the lawn with
lazing students and gossiping housewives, all as naked as they were
born.
Given the more repressed nature of Anglo-Saxon cultures, it
isn’t surprising that visitors from these countries are quite
shocked by the sight of nude Germans nonchalantly strolling around —
or that these very same visitors often make the nude sunbathing
lawns a major stop in their itineraries, specifically to do some
slack-jawed ogling. There have even been drops in the number of nude
sunbathers who, while not averse to being naked, do object to being
gaped at by tourists. Perhaps the best way for the visitor to
enjoy the scenery without giving too much offense would be to doff
their own clothes and join in!
For the slightly more energetic, there are rowboats available for
exploring the Kleinhesseloher lake, which has three small islands
and a multitude of ducks and swans, fat from constant feedings by
park visitors. The Seerhaus beer garden sits on the shores of this
lake, combining a pleasant lake view with a good mug of German brew. With so many streams and ponds in the park, its not surprising that
a few designated stretches of water are open to swimming. The only
problem is that the water comes straight from the Alps, and is often
surprisingly cold! Amazingly enough, you can even go surfing in the
middle of the city — parts of the river Isar are almost perfect for
getting some surfboard practice and on warm summer days, you might
even have trouble finding a bit of clear space to practice your
moves!
One activity particularly popular with courting couples are the
carriage rides, which are a pleasant way to enjoy the park without
too much effort. To really enjoy the park however, the best way to
go is by foot or on a bicycle. Just watch out for the dogs! There
are plenty of them gamboling about in the park, and though they are
required to be on a leash, no amount of regulation in the world will
help you if you run over a poor poodle while admiring the scenery.
If you don’t want to put in too much effort however, then just find
an empty seat in one of the beer gardens, take a sip of cold beer
and soak in the warm sunshine, the loud, happy music and the
festive, fun atmosphere that makes the English Garden such a
pleasant place to be.
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