Munich winters are long, and a toddler still needs somewhere to climb, splash and make noise. These are the indoor spots we'd pick for kids who are just finding their feet: soft play cafés where parents sit with a coffee, museum rooms built for small hands, a puppet theater and a warm wave pool. Here's what we checked, from Kleine Sportgeister to the Deutsches Museum.
WichtelWerk is an indoor play center with 1,600 m² of play inside and a 1,000 m² outdoor play meadow. The centerpiece is a four-level climbing maze with a wobble bridge, a shoot-out arena and a 10-meter wave slide.
Around it sit two bouncy castles, a ball pit, a separate toddler area, a kids' kart track and the Donut Glider, a slide ridden in a rubber tube.
Kleine Sportgeister is a Turncafé (a gym café) in Schwabing set up for babies and toddlers. The movement room is laid out with gym mats, soft foam blocks, ramps, tunnels and climbing frames, and the setup changes regularly, so crawlers and new walkers can climb, slide and balance.
A play and café corner serves coffee, waffles and cake, and parents stay with their child the whole time.
Coco Loco is an indoor play hall in Grünwald, on Munich's southern edge, filled with jungle-themed climbing frames, an XXL bouncy castle with a climbing course and maze that slides into the fun park, and a netted area with four trampolines.
Electric cars and motorbikes circle a track, and the youngest get a fenced-off area with a slide and soft building blocks. A café serves pizza, burgers and fries.
A hands-on museum built around one big interactive exhibition at a time, with stations, objects and workshop corners to touch, try and explore. The current show, "Iss was?!", is about food and the senses: kids milk a model cow, grind grain into flour, shop in a play supermarket and explore an oversized nose and tongue. Exhibition guides are on hand to help. A visit takes about 90 minutes.
One of the largest museums in Germany, with 20 permanent exhibitions on an island in the Isar. Kids walk among planes and helicopters in Modern Aviation, see how locks and bridges work, and try about 20 hands-on light experiments in Classical Optics.
Younger children head to Kids' Kingdom: a marble run, a fire engine to climb into, a giant guitar to crawl inside and a pedal-powered aircraft.
SEA LIFE Munich is an indoor aquarium in the Olympiapark, next to the Olympic Tower. A walk-through underwater tunnel runs beneath the tropical ocean tank, home to blacktip reef sharks and Pünktchen, a zebra shark.
Other zones cover the Isar river, the Danube delta, jellyfish, seahorses and a discovery pool. Many tanks sit at floor level, so toddlers can see in without being lifted.
A small puppet theater that has played for over 40 years in an old gatehouse, set in a little park above the Isar weir in Oberföhring. Kasperl and Seppl are the regulars, and the program changes every week.
Stories for the youngest stay close to home and everyday life, while plays for slightly older kids add fairy-tale and adventure plots. A small theater café opens before each show.
The world's largest library of international children's books fills a 15th-century castle beside the Würm river. The children's library lends 20,000 books in 24 languages, from Arabic to Ukrainian, and runs courses and readings for kids and families.
Upstairs, the Michael Ende Museum shows the author's books, drawings and belongings, with Momo, Jim Button and Bastian from The Neverending Story. The James Krüss Museum Tower holds more exhibits.
Cosimawellenbad is Munich's only public pool with waves. When the wave machine runs, the big pool rolls like the sea; the rest of the time it is a lap and aqua-fitness pool.
Younger kids get a large splash area with a slide, a little boat channel, floor fountains and water jets. There is also a warm outdoor pool with bubble loungers, and a café overlooks the pool hall.
A 21-hectare botanical garden, opened in 1914, beside Nymphenburg Palace park. Indoors, a chain of greenhouses runs from a tall palm house to a giant cactus hall, a tree fern house on lava rock, an orchid house and the Victoria house with its huge water lilies.
Outside, kids can follow paths through an alpine rock garden with over 2,000 species, an arboretum and pond areas.
Munich winters are long, and a toddler still needs somewhere to climb, splash and make noise. These are the indoor spots we'd pick for kids who are just finding their feet: soft play cafés where parents sit with a coffee, museum rooms built for small hands, a puppet theater and a warm wave pool. Here's what we checked, from Kleine Sportgeister to the Deutsches Museum.
WichtelWerk is an indoor play center with 1,600 m² of play inside and a 1,000 m² outdoor play meadow. The centerpiece is a four-level climbing maze with a wobble bridge, a shoot-out arena and a 10-meter wave slide.
Around it sit two bouncy castles, a ball pit, a separate toddler area, a kids' kart track and the Donut Glider, a slide ridden in a rubber tube.
Kleine Sportgeister is a Turncafé (a gym café) in Schwabing set up for babies and toddlers. The movement room is laid out with gym mats, soft foam blocks, ramps, tunnels and climbing frames, and the setup changes regularly, so crawlers and new walkers can climb, slide and balance.
A play and café corner serves coffee, waffles and cake, and parents stay with their child the whole time.
Coco Loco is an indoor play hall in Grünwald, on Munich's southern edge, filled with jungle-themed climbing frames, an XXL bouncy castle with a climbing course and maze that slides into the fun park, and a netted area with four trampolines.
Electric cars and motorbikes circle a track, and the youngest get a fenced-off area with a slide and soft building blocks. A café serves pizza, burgers and fries.
A hands-on museum built around one big interactive exhibition at a time, with stations, objects and workshop corners to touch, try and explore. The current show, "Iss was?!", is about food and the senses: kids milk a model cow, grind grain into flour, shop in a play supermarket and explore an oversized nose and tongue. Exhibition guides are on hand to help. A visit takes about 90 minutes.
One of the largest museums in Germany, with 20 permanent exhibitions on an island in the Isar. Kids walk among planes and helicopters in Modern Aviation, see how locks and bridges work, and try about 20 hands-on light experiments in Classical Optics.
Younger children head to Kids' Kingdom: a marble run, a fire engine to climb into, a giant guitar to crawl inside and a pedal-powered aircraft.
SEA LIFE Munich is an indoor aquarium in the Olympiapark, next to the Olympic Tower. A walk-through underwater tunnel runs beneath the tropical ocean tank, home to blacktip reef sharks and Pünktchen, a zebra shark.
Other zones cover the Isar river, the Danube delta, jellyfish, seahorses and a discovery pool. Many tanks sit at floor level, so toddlers can see in without being lifted.
A small puppet theater that has played for over 40 years in an old gatehouse, set in a little park above the Isar weir in Oberföhring. Kasperl and Seppl are the regulars, and the program changes every week.
Stories for the youngest stay close to home and everyday life, while plays for slightly older kids add fairy-tale and adventure plots. A small theater café opens before each show.
The world's largest library of international children's books fills a 15th-century castle beside the Würm river. The children's library lends 20,000 books in 24 languages, from Arabic to Ukrainian, and runs courses and readings for kids and families.
Upstairs, the Michael Ende Museum shows the author's books, drawings and belongings, with Momo, Jim Button and Bastian from The Neverending Story. The James Krüss Museum Tower holds more exhibits.
Cosimawellenbad is Munich's only public pool with waves. When the wave machine runs, the big pool rolls like the sea; the rest of the time it is a lap and aqua-fitness pool.
Younger kids get a large splash area with a slide, a little boat channel, floor fountains and water jets. There is also a warm outdoor pool with bubble loungers, and a café overlooks the pool hall.
A 21-hectare botanical garden, opened in 1914, beside Nymphenburg Palace park. Indoors, a chain of greenhouses runs from a tall palm house to a giant cactus hall, a tree fern house on lava rock, an orchid house and the Victoria house with its huge water lilies.
Outside, kids can follow paths through an alpine rock garden with over 2,000 species, an arboretum and pond areas.
