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Photo: Rufus46, CC BY-SA 3.0 via Wikimedia Commons
Extensive museum, occupying most of a city block; absorbing but signage is only in German. The oldest part of the building is an armory of 1500, the newest is the former Uhlfelder department store (all bombed in wartime, but the collections had been taken to safety), and it's growing still. The permanent exhibitions are "Typically Munich!" (how the city acquired its identity), Migration, National Socialism (the movement was launched here), Puppets and Fairground, and Music. "Collections" (whose highlights may figure in exhibitions) include photography, applied arts, graphics, textiles and music. Temporary exhibitions are generally on site for a year or so. There's also a film museum and theatre with daily screenings. Check ahead online for gallery closures, and search the online catalogue.
The Munich Stadtmuseum or Munich City Museum, is the city museum of Munich. It was founded in 1888 by Ernst von Destouches. It is located in the former municipal arsenal and stables, both buildings of the late Gothic period.
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This Late Baroque confection was built from 1733 to 1746 as a private chapel by Egid Quirin Asam - he could see the altar from his house next door. His brother, Cosmas Damian Asam, did the frescoes. The church is dedicated to St John Nepomuk (1345-93), a Bohemian monk cast into the river Vltava in Prague at the behest of King Wenceslaus IV. Legend has it that Nepomuk refused to divulge the queen's confessional secrets, but his real crime was to back the wrong candidate for abbot. The church is wonderful by candlelight, especially at the Christmas Eve service, replete with Bavarian singers in the choir stall.
Street and urban art is ephemeral but the idea of MUCA, opened in 2016, is to bring it into the artistic mainstream. There's a permanent collection and rotating exhibitions.
Church of Our Lady
This huge church defines the Munich skyline with its twin onion-domed towers, a shade over 98 m tall - the money ran out for the planned spires. It's the Roman Catholic cathedral, but always known locally as Frauenkirche. It was built from 1469 to 1488 in brick because of a lack of suitable local stone; the towers were only completed in 1525, cleverly anticipating a law of 2004 that no structure within Altstadt may exceed 99 m in height. Although its style is Gothic, it's fairly simple outside and in, without the usual ornamentation of that style. Eleven kings or archdukes of Bavaria are interred here. The church was bombed in wartime and full restoration took until 1994. Its three naves are of equal height, creating a single hall soaring so high that you can't see the windows, and light floods in from no visible source. This is in legend is the feature that caused the devil to stamp in pique, leaving a black footprint (Teufelstritt) within a yellow flagstone just inside the entrance. You can climb the south tower.
Grand Renaissance church built for the Jesuits 1583-1599 by Duke Wilhelm V, as a bastion of the Counter-Reformation against those awful Lutherans. The Duke nearly busted the state coffers in buying up the land and funding a construction that townsfolk reckoned was too big to stand. And down fell the tower: "I know, I'll build it bigger". This version survived until bombed in wartime and was restored in the 1950s. The facade and interior continue the triumphal theme, for example the statue of Archangel Michael slaying a demon who might be Protestant. The church crypt holds many tombs of the Wittelsbach dynasty, including "mad king" Ludwig II.
History of the festival, in a townhouse of 1340. The "Himmelsleiter" is its characteristic early staircase, a straight flight with no corners.
Modern art museum, no permanent collection but rotating exhibitions. It's funded by HypoVereinsbank.