Munich: Neuschwanstein Castle, Beer Gardens & Bavaria's Proud Identity

Bavaria doesn't feel quite like the rest of Germany—and Bavarians will be the first to tell you so. Munich, the state capital, carries its regional identity with a very particular confidence: the lederhosen worn unironically, the beer culture treated as heritage rather than tourism, the Alps visible on clear days from the city's parks. We arrived for the final leg of our Germany trip and immediately felt the shift in atmosphere. More relaxed. More festive. More openly proud.

We had three full days in Munich and used every hour, including a day trip that we'd been looking forward to since we booked the flights months earlier: Neuschwanstein Castle.

Day 1
Neuschwanstein — The Fairytale That Inspired Disney

Neuschwanstein Castle sits in the Bavarian Alps above the village of Hohenschwangau, and it is genuinely, objectively one of the most beautiful buildings humans have created. King Ludwig II commissioned it in 1869, and though he died before its completion, what he created became the template for every subsequent fairytale castle—including, famously, the inspiration for Sleeping Beauty's Castle in Disneyland.

We took the train from Munich Hauptbahnhof to Füssen (about 2 hours), then a bus up to the castle ticket office. Book your timed entry tickets in advance—we cannot stress this enough. The queues for on-the-day tickets are brutal in summer. We'd booked weeks ahead and walked straight in.

The interior tour takes about 35 minutes and reveals rooms of extraordinary ambition: the Singers' Hall modeled on Parsifal's Grail Castle, Ludwig's bedroom covered in elaborate Gothic woodcarving that took craftsmen four years to complete, and everywhere the symbols of swans and Wagnerian mythology that Ludwig was obsessed with. He lived in the castle for just 172 days before his death under mysterious circumstances.

Day 2
Marienplatz & the Glockenspiel

Back in Munich proper, Marienplatz is the historic heart of the city—a large pedestrian square flanked by the Gothic Neues Rathaus (New Town Hall), with its famous Glockenspiel: a 43-bell carillon with 32 life-sized figures that perform daily at 11 a.m. and noon. We positioned ourselves in the crowd at 11, watched the figures dance and joust through two stories of Bavarian legend, and then joined the very satisfied tourists shuffling off to get coffee.

Around the square, the Viktualienmarkt—Munich's daily outdoor food market—has been operating since 1807. We ate the most perfect weißwurst (white sausage) with sweet mustard, accompanied by a pretzel the size of a dinner plate, at a market stall. Locals were doing the same, which felt like sufficient endorsement.

Day 2
English Garden — Larger Than Central Park

The Englischer Garten—English Garden—is one of the world's largest urban parks, larger than New York's Central Park. On a warm June day, it's essentially where all of Munich goes to exhale. People swimming in the Eisbach, a cold fast-moving stream running through the park (the river surfers at the Haus der Kunst end of the stream are a genuine Munich institution). People cycling. People lying in grass that seemed specifically designed for lying in.

We found a Biergarten inside the park—one of four, because of course there are four—and ordered from the traditional self-service setup: you get your beer and food from different counters, find a table, arrange your life. The beer was cold, the pretzels were warm, the afternoon was golden. Bavaria at its most straightforwardly delightful.

Day 3
Dachau — The Historical Weight Munich Carries

We made the decision to visit the Dachau Concentration Camp Memorial Site, about 20 km from central Munich by S-Bahn. We weren't sure whether to include it in a travel guide, but then—we were in Germany, visiting history honestly, and Dachau was Germany's first concentration camp, opened in 1933.

The memorial is free, thoughtful, and unflinching. We spent three hours there. We didn't photograph inside the main memorial building. We walked the length of the grounds where prisoners lived and died. And we came back to Munich quieter, and perhaps more grateful, than we'd left.

Both the lightness of the Biergarten and the gravity of Dachau are parts of what Munich contains. We think it's worth holding both.