Munich with teenagers - 2 days
 

We will be in Munich on a Friday and Saturday (traveling on Thursday / Sunday) next month. We will be staying in the Marienplatz area. I'm trying to pick a couple of things to do that will entertain & educate the kids (13 & 14 years old). It's such a short time, that I really want to nail down our itinerary before we go. I do not want to do any concentration camp/memorials this trip. I think the castle tours might take too long, eating up a whole day, unless everyone thinks it's worth taking up one of our two days?!

Places I'm thinking about:
Englischer garten - to see gardens, Japanese tea house, surfing, and of course naked people
Deutsches Museum
Hofbrauhaus Munchen
Walking tour of Munich
BMW Museum (for hubby)

Suggestions and recommendations? Thanks in advance!

Do the BMW tour, I loved it. You boys will be impressed by the motorcycle stunt driver.

http://www.augustiner-restaurant.com...rhalle_en.html

Best food and beer.

https://allianz-arena.com/en They might really like this.

I agree with you assessment about palaces (in particular skip the Residenz) but I also found the Deutsches Museum a snooze. I am not fascinated by the history of science, so I am not the intended audience for the museum, but I was surprised by the lack of interactive-whiz bang computer displays. Instead, this truly is a museum that warehouses old scientific/technological inventions. If you have ever wondered what the evolution of the combine machine was, the museum has 15 or 20 enormous ones. Just sitting there. Likewise, it must have 100 or 200 cameras in display cases. And just as many types of phonograph machines (none of which play music.) The most fetching room was filled with airplane and rocket parts. You can even climb inside a fokker airplane cockpit. So it's not only idle machinery. But suggest if you go that you look online ahead of time and pick what sounds the most interesting (or maybe read reviews?) and make a bee-line for that. It's an enormous space, many city blocks square, so mapping out highlights ahead of time might be helpful. (Of course if your kids are science & tech buffs, they might love the place.)

Deutches Museum was really cool. The mine walk through was unique, and my favorite room was the nautical room. Just amazing. Plus it has a fantastic gift shop if your kids like tech/science/experimental toys. But I will fully admit to being a technology (and especially maritime) geek.

Also it's worth noting the Deutches is made up of three museums. One is the big main one. Then there's a car one. Can't remember what the last was. Anyway the point is that your concern that castle tours would eat a day is also relevant to the Deutches. The main location alone could suck away the whole day. So it depends on your kids interests.

And definitely hit the hofbrauhaus! That wasn't even on my list- my friend took me and it was so much more fun than I expected. The kids will love it!

I'd probably skip the walking tour. The Marienplatz/palace area is really neat but Munich is not really a place I'd pick to do a walking tour. Unless you really like them and that's something you do everywhere.

The only whizz-bang thing I can recall about the Deutsches Museum is the electricity demonstration, which features a member of staff in a Faraday cage being struck by artificial lightning. Otherwise, I'd agree it was a bit old-fashionedly static (and that's certainly true of the Transport museum).

http://www.deutsches-museum.de/en/in...tours/red-dot/

Personally I could live without the Hofbräuhaus, as I prefer less crowded and boisterous eating drinking and eating, but that's a matter of taste.

I would go to Dachau. I find the shoa and holocaust more educational than BMW or a beer hall.

What I liked most in a hifbrauhaus are the toilets. Big as a train station. It can hold a lot of men together. Impressive.

http://www.thirdreichruins.com/munich.htm I think these pictures are interesting as you walk around Munich you can see what was there before the bombings. A lot of history.

https://www.tripadvisor.com/Attracti...a_Bavaria.html