Munich, August 2024

One of the things I was looking forward to most this year was a Harry Potter exhibition that was taking place in Munich. Since I hadn’t visited Munich before and I had vacation during this time, I decided to spend multiple days in the city, also visiting some of my friends who have moved there over the years. The weather was not playing along nicely on all the days while I was there — a couple of days were quite rainy, which limited the choice of activities a bit — but it was overall a very memorable stay.

Learning about history has always been one of my hobbies, so, while in Munich, I also went for a guided tour of the Dachau concentration camp (I managed to convince my friends to join as well). WWII has always shocked me — whether it’s been by reading about it or by watching movies and documentaries — but I still felt like I had to see a camp for myself (it’s one thing to read about the camps, but something completely different to actually see one). In this post, I took lots of pictures from around Munich; the camp was by far the most memorable location I visited, but taking pictures there didn’t feel right, out of respect for all the victims.

Pictures from around Munich

My friends showed me several places around the center of Munich, and I have to say it is visually a great city, though a bit too full of people for my liking (I think that was partly because there were concerts by Adele and Coldplay while I was there). We also went to the top of the Frauenkirche to look down upon the city, but this wasn’t a particularly good experience; we were there on a very warm day and the tower is essentially a greenhouse, so the temperature in the tower was unbearable.

Here are my impressions of the city through various pictures.

English Garden

Back when I was in school, we read a text about the English Garden in my English class; from this, I knew that the garden is an important location in the city, so I definitely wanted to visit it while being here. The park is very large, and I found it to be lovely, full of people enjoying their time. The Monopteros was my favourite location, but the Chinese Tower looks quite cool as well.

Südbad Tutzing

My friends and I used one of the warm days as a chance to go to the Südbad Tutzing at Starnberger See. The lake was absolutely amazing; a great opportunity for me to swim and do some paddleboarding (I was doing that for the first time, but it didn’t take too long to be able to do it while standing — a really fun experience). The only annoying thing was that there were many wasps in the bar area where we were sitting, but oh well.

Here are a few pictures of the path to the lake and the lake itself.

Olympiapark

The Harry Potter exhibition was in the Olympiapark, so I also had a short walk around there. The area itself looks really good; on this day, it was also very full of people because Coldplay was supposed to have a concert in the evening, so many of them were looking for spots around the Olympiastadion where they could listen to the concert. Here are some pictures of the park.

Nymphenburg Palace

I was staying fairly close to the Nymphenburg Palace, and a friend and I had some time to briefly visit this landmark as well (just the garden, not the palace itself). It was a nice area; one could definitely go there to walk around and relax.

Harry Potter Exhibition

The Harry Potter exhibition was, in one word, fascinating. There were so many props from the movies — gowns, wands, the horcruxes, the pensieve… The recreations of some of the scenery was also done really well — the candles in the Great Hall, Hagrid’s hut, Umbridge’s office, the Cupboard Under the Stairs, the entrance to the Chamber of Secrets… There were also dedicated areas for the four houses, as well as rooms dedicated to quidditch and the Triwizard Tournament. Worth every single cent.

Here are some of the pictures I took while at the exhibition.