Munich gets plenty of gray, wet days, and kids still need somewhere to put their energy. These are the indoor spots we'd pick when the forecast turns: hands-on museums, a trampoline park, wave pools, puppet theaters and a planetarium. Here's what we checked, from the marble runs at the Deutsches Museum to the picture-book shelves at Blutenburg Castle.
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.
Three listed 1908 exhibition halls on the Theresienhöhe hold 275 vehicles, from trams and VW Beetles to steam locomotives and the Benz Patent-Motorwagen. Hall I covers city traffic and crash safety; Hall II is a railway platform lined with locomotives and carriages; Hall III has racing cars, bikes and skates.
The children's area in Hall III lets kids build, paint, slide and play with toy cars.
The BMW Museum traces over 100 years of BMW cars and motorcycles through themed houses on design, technology, motorsport and the brand, in a bowl-shaped building next to the Olympiapark.
Kids walk past race cars, prototypes and the tiny Isetta bubble car, and at least one Art Car painted by artists such as Andy Warhol or Jeff Koons is always on display.
BMW Welt is the carmaker's showroom and delivery center, a sweeping glass building with a twisted double cone at one end. Kids can explore the latest BMW, MINI, Rolls-Royce and BMW Motorrad models up close, and look down on the Premiere, where new owners drive off in their cars.
The BMW Museum, directly opposite, covers more than 100 years of BMW history and runs hands-on workshops for kids.
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 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.
The Munich Toy Museum fills four floors of the Old Town Hall tower on Marienplatz with the private collection of the Ivan Steiger family, spanning four centuries of play. Kids can look at model railways, steam engines, tin toys, teddy bears, dolls and dollhouses, wooden toys, Barbies and a wall of robots. The small tower rooms make it a short visit, and an audio guide can be downloaded in advance.
A natural history museum in the north wing of Nymphenburg Palace. The heart of it is a quiz hall where kids press a button to answer questions about animals, and doors pop open or model animals sprint off. Pumuckl audio plays by cases of local wildlife.
Elsewhere: glittering minerals, the history of life, a hall on the brain, and Bruno, the brown bear who roamed Bavaria in 2006.
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.
A 3,400-square-meter trampoline hall with 13 attractions. Next to the big FreeJUMP trampoline floor sit Ninja Warrior-style courses (the NinjaBridge and the points-based NinjaPod Arena), a soccer arena, and SurvivalJUMP, where jumpers try to outlast a spinning bar.
It suits kids who want to burn off energy and try a challenge. Parents can jump too, or wait in the café area.
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.
Therme Erding is a thermal spa and water park with more than 300 real palm trees around its pools. Kids head for the Galaxy, 28 slides adding up to over 2,850 meters, including four children's slides for over-3s and two gentler ones for toddlers.
The 34-degree wave pool runs from gentle ripples to surfing swells up to two meters high. The sauna and wellness areas are for ages 16 and up.
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.
A children's theater where professional actors stage fairy tales and classic children's books: Grimm, Hauff and Andersen alongside Astrid Lindgren, Otfried Preußler, Janosch and Michael Ende. Sets and costumes are elaborate, and the repertoire runs to at least 16 plays. Plays are performed in German.
The hall sits in a listed 1916 former cinema with Jugendstil interiors, and the raised stage gives a clear view from almost every seat.
The Volkssternwarte is a public observatory run by an astronomy society, with a solar-system exhibition, a Zeiss planetarium dome, and a rooftop platform nearly 30 meters up with five telescope domes.
Kids' planetarium shows tell space stories under a projected night sky. The children's tour visits all three stations and ends at the big telescopes, with views to the Alps on clear days.
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.
Munich gets plenty of gray, wet days, and kids still need somewhere to put their energy. These are the indoor spots we'd pick when the forecast turns: hands-on museums, a trampoline park, wave pools, puppet theaters and a planetarium. Here's what we checked, from the marble runs at the Deutsches Museum to the picture-book shelves at Blutenburg Castle.
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.
Three listed 1908 exhibition halls on the Theresienhöhe hold 275 vehicles, from trams and VW Beetles to steam locomotives and the Benz Patent-Motorwagen. Hall I covers city traffic and crash safety; Hall II is a railway platform lined with locomotives and carriages; Hall III has racing cars, bikes and skates.
The children's area in Hall III lets kids build, paint, slide and play with toy cars.
The BMW Museum traces over 100 years of BMW cars and motorcycles through themed houses on design, technology, motorsport and the brand, in a bowl-shaped building next to the Olympiapark.
Kids walk past race cars, prototypes and the tiny Isetta bubble car, and at least one Art Car painted by artists such as Andy Warhol or Jeff Koons is always on display.
BMW Welt is the carmaker's showroom and delivery center, a sweeping glass building with a twisted double cone at one end. Kids can explore the latest BMW, MINI, Rolls-Royce and BMW Motorrad models up close, and look down on the Premiere, where new owners drive off in their cars.
The BMW Museum, directly opposite, covers more than 100 years of BMW history and runs hands-on workshops for kids.
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 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.
The Munich Toy Museum fills four floors of the Old Town Hall tower on Marienplatz with the private collection of the Ivan Steiger family, spanning four centuries of play. Kids can look at model railways, steam engines, tin toys, teddy bears, dolls and dollhouses, wooden toys, Barbies and a wall of robots. The small tower rooms make it a short visit, and an audio guide can be downloaded in advance.
A natural history museum in the north wing of Nymphenburg Palace. The heart of it is a quiz hall where kids press a button to answer questions about animals, and doors pop open or model animals sprint off. Pumuckl audio plays by cases of local wildlife.
Elsewhere: glittering minerals, the history of life, a hall on the brain, and Bruno, the brown bear who roamed Bavaria in 2006.
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.
A 3,400-square-meter trampoline hall with 13 attractions. Next to the big FreeJUMP trampoline floor sit Ninja Warrior-style courses (the NinjaBridge and the points-based NinjaPod Arena), a soccer arena, and SurvivalJUMP, where jumpers try to outlast a spinning bar.
It suits kids who want to burn off energy and try a challenge. Parents can jump too, or wait in the café area.
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.
Therme Erding is a thermal spa and water park with more than 300 real palm trees around its pools. Kids head for the Galaxy, 28 slides adding up to over 2,850 meters, including four children's slides for over-3s and two gentler ones for toddlers.
The 34-degree wave pool runs from gentle ripples to surfing swells up to two meters high. The sauna and wellness areas are for ages 16 and up.
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.
A children's theater where professional actors stage fairy tales and classic children's books: Grimm, Hauff and Andersen alongside Astrid Lindgren, Otfried Preußler, Janosch and Michael Ende. Sets and costumes are elaborate, and the repertoire runs to at least 16 plays. Plays are performed in German.
The hall sits in a listed 1916 former cinema with Jugendstil interiors, and the raised stage gives a clear view from almost every seat.
The Volkssternwarte is a public observatory run by an astronomy society, with a solar-system exhibition, a Zeiss planetarium dome, and a rooftop platform nearly 30 meters up with five telescope domes.
Kids' planetarium shows tell space stories under a projected night sky. The children's tour visits all three stations and ends at the big telescopes, with views to the Alps on clear days.
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.
