Top historic sites in Munich

St. Peter's Church

St. Peter's Church is the oldest church in the Munich district. Before the foundation of Munich as a city in 1158, there had been a pre-Merovingian church on this site. 8th century monks lived around this church on a hill called Petersbergl. At the end of the 12th century a new church in the Bavarian Romanesque style was consecrated, and expanded in Gothic style shortly before the great fire in 1327, which destroyed the b ...
Founded: 12th century | Location: Munich, Germany

New Town Hall

The New Town Hall (Neues Rathaus) hosts the Munich government including the city council, offices of the mayors and part of the administration. In 1874 the municipality had left the Old Town Hall for its new domicile. The town hall was built between 1867 and 1908 by Georg von Hauberrisser in a Gothic Revival architecture style. It covers an area of 9159 m² having 400 rooms. The 100 meters long main facade towards th ...
Founded: 1867-1908 | Location: Munich, Germany

Old Town Hall

The Old Town Hall (Altes Rathaus) serves today as a building for representative purposes for the city council in Munich. The Old Town Hall bounds the central square Marienplatz on its east side. The building, documented for the first time in 1310, had its Grand Hall constructed in 1392/1394. The former Talburg Gate of the first city wall serves as spire. The Old Town Hall was re-designed in late-gothic style by Jörg von ...
Founded: 1392 | Location: Munich, Germany

The Church of Our Lady

The Church of Our Lady (Frauenkirche) is undoubtedly the most famous landmark in the city of Munich. Its impressive domed twin towers rising a hundred metres into the sky can be seen from miles around. This triple-naved late-Gothic cathedral in Munich"s old quarter, which houses art treasures spanning five centuries, is the cathedral church of the Archbishop of Munich and Freising. The late-Gothic brick edifice with its ...
Founded: 1468-1488 | Location: Munich, Germany

Munich Residenz

The Munich Residenz is the former royal palace of the Bavarian monarchs of the House of Wittelsbach. The Residenz is the largest city palace in Germany and is today open to visitors for its architecture, room decorations, and displays from the former royal collections. The complex of buildings contains ten courtyards and displays 130 rooms. A wing of the Festsaalbau contains the Cuvilliés Theatre since the reconstructio ...
Founded: 1508 | Location: Munich, Germany

Deutsches Museum

The Deutsches Museum is the world"s largest museum of science and technology, with approximately 1.5 million visitors per year and about 28,000 exhibited objects from 50 fields of science and technology. The museum was founded on June 28, 1903, at a meeting of the Association of German Engineers as an initiative of Oskar von Miller. The main site of the Deutsches Museum is a small island in the Isar river, which had ...
Founded: 1903 | Location: Munich, Germany

Pinakothek der Moderne

The Pinakothek der Moderne is one of the world"s largest museums for modern and contemporary art. Designed by German architect Stephan Braunfels, the Pinakothek der Moderne was inaugurated in September 2002 after seven years of construction. In contrast to other cities Munich was not much affected by the Nazi regime"s banning of modern art as 'degenerate art,' since only a few modern paintings were al ...
Founded: 2002 | Location: Munich, Germany

St. Michael's Church

St. Michael's Jesuit church in Munich is the largest Renaissance church north of the Alps. The style of the building had an enormous influence on Southern German early Baroque architecture. The church was built by William V, Duke of Bavaria between 1583 and 1597 as a spiritual center for the Counter Reformation. In order to realise his ambitious plans for the church and the adjoining college, Duke William had 87 houses i ...
Founded: 1583-1597 | Location: Munich, Germany

Nymphenburg Palace

Nymphenburg Palace is the main summer residence of the former rulers of Bavaria of the House of Wittelsbach. The palace owes its foundation as a summer residence to the birth of the long-awaited heir to the throne, Max Emanuel, who was born in 1662 to the Bavarian Elector Ferdinand Maria and his wife, Henriette Adelaide of Savoy, after some ten years of marriage. In 1664 construction began to the plans of the north Itali ...
Founded: 1664 | Location: Munich, Germany

Alte Pinakothek

The Alte Pinakothek (Old Pinacotheca) is one of the oldest art museums in the world and houses one of the most famous collections of Old Master paintings. The name Alte (Old) Pinakothek refers to the time period covered by the collection—from the 14th to the 18th century. The Neue Pinakothek covers 19th-century art, and the recently opened Pinakothek der Moderne exhibits modern art. All three galleries are part of the B ...
Founded: 1836 | Location: Munich, Germany

Dachau Concentration Camp

On March 22, 1933, a few weeks after Adolf Hitler had been appointed Reich Chancellor, a concentration camp for political prisoners was set up in Dachau. This camp served as a model for all later concentration camps and as a 'school of violence' for the SS men under whose command it stood. In the twelve years of its existence over 200.000 persons from all over Europe were imprisoned here and in the numerous subs ...
Founded: 1933 | Location: Dachau, Germany

Asam Church

St. Johann Nepomuk, better known as the Asam Church was built from 1733 to 1746 by the brothers Egid Quirin Asam and Cosmas Damian Asam as their private church. Due to resistance of the citizens, the brothers were forced to make the church accessible to the public. The church is considered to be one of the most important buildings of the main representatives of the southern German Late Baroque. The church was built witho ...
Founded: 1733-1746 | Location: Munich, Germany

Neue Pinakothek

The Neue Pinakothek is an art museum in Munich. Its focus is European Art of the 18th and 19th century and is one of the most important museums of art of the 19th century in the world. Together with the Alte Pinakothek and the Pinakothek der Moderne it is part of Munich"s 'Kunstareal' (the 'art area'). The museum was founded by the former King Ludwig I of Bavaria in 1853. The original building co ...
Founded: 1853 | Location: Munich, Germany

Schleissheim Palace

Schleissheim Palace actually comprises three palaces in a grand baroque park in the village of Oberschleißheim, a suburb of Munich. The palace was a summer residence of the Bavarian rulers of the House of Wittelsbach. Old Schleissheim Palace The history of Schleissheim Palace started with a renaissance country house (1598) and hermitage founded by William V close to Dachau Palace. The central gate and clock tower ...
Founded: 1617-1704 | Location: Munich, Germany

Ludwigskirche

The Catholic Parish and University Church St. Louis, called Ludwigskirche, is a monumental church in neo-romanesque style with the second-largest altar fresco of the world. The building, with its round arches called the Rundbogenstil, strongly influenced other church architecture, train stations and synagogues in both Germany and the United States. The Ludwigskirche was built by the architect Friedrich von Gärtner f ...
Founded: 1829 | Location: Munich, Germany

Blutenburg Castle

Blutenburg Castle is an old ducal country seat in the west of Munich. The castle was built between two arms of the River Würm for Duke Albert III, Duke of Bavaria in 1438–39 as a hunting-lodge, replacing an older castle burned down in war. The origin of this castle is a moated castle of the 13th century. The core of this castle was a residential tower, the remains of which were uncovered in 1981. The fortress was first ...
Founded: 1438-1439 | Location: Munich, Germany

Amalienburg

The Amalienburg is an elaborate hunting lodge in the grounds of Nymphenburg Palace. It was constructed in 1734-1739 by François de Cuvilliés, in Rococo style, for the later Holy Roman Emperor Charles VII and his wife, Maria Amalia of Austria. Most of the ground floor is given over to the round Hall of Mirrors in the center of the building which mirrored walls reflect the external nature. It was designed by Johann Bapti ...
Founded: 1734-1739 | Location: Munich, Germany

Fürstenried Palace

Fürstenried Palace is a Baroque palace built by Joseph Effner for Elector Maximilian II Emanuel in 1715–17 as a hunting lodge. Two pavilions are added each in the south and north of the main building. A few years later (1726) a fire damaged the Fürstenried Palace. The following year, at the birth of the future Maximilian III, Fürstenried went as puerperal gift to the Princess Maria Amalia of Austria, ...
Founded: 1715 | Location: Munich, Germany

Featured Historic Landmarks, Sites & Buildings

Historic Site of the week

Monte d'Accoddi

Monte d"Accoddi is a Neolithic archaeological site in northern Sardinia, located in the territory of Sassari. The site consists of a massive raised stone platform thought to have been an altar. It was constructed by the Ozieri culture or earlier, with the oldest parts dated to around 4,000–3,650 BC.

The site was discovered in 1954 in a field owned by the Segni family. No chambers or entrances to the mound have been found, leading to the presumption it was an altar, a temple or a step pyramid. It may have also served an observational function, as its square plan is coordinated with the cardinal points of the compass.

The initial Ozieri structure was abandoned or destroyed around 3000 BC, with traces of fire found in the archeological evidence. Around 2800 BC the remains of the original structure were completely covered with a layered mixture of earth and stone, and large blocks of limestone were then applied to establish a second platform, truncated by a step pyramid (36 m × 29 m, about 10 m in height), accessible by means of a second ramp, 42 m long, built over the older one. This second temple resembles contemporary Mesopotamian ziggurats, and is attributed to the Abealzu-Filigosa culture.

Archeological excavations from the chalcolithic Abealzu-Filigosa layers indicate the Monte d"Accoddi was used for animal sacrifice, with the remains of sheep, cattle, and swine recovered in near equal proportions. It is among the earliest known sacrificial sites in Western Europe.

The site appears to have been abandoned again around 1800 BC, at the onset of the Nuragic age.

The monument was partially reconstructed during the 1980s. It is open to the public and accessible by the old route of SS131 highway, near the hamlet of Ottava. It is 14,9 km from Sassari and 45 km from Alghero. There is no public transportation to the site. The opening times vary throughout the year.