This post is part of my Traveling Tuesday Series.
We did a lot of traveling when we first arrived in Dublin but after our beach vacation in Malaga, we took a bit of a break before heading to Germany for a 10-day driving tour through the country. We started in Munich, where we met my parents from the states, then visited Nuremberg, Leipzig, Wittenberg, and Berlin before finishing up in Hamburg and flying back to Dublin for Christmas with the whole family.
Our eldest daughter, Honeybun was 2 1/2 and our younger daughter, Sugarplum, was 5 months at the time of our visit. We packed a lot in to our German trip including a lot of history and, of course, time at the Christkindlmarkts.
Here are the basics of traveling to Munich with kids:
Getting Around
We flew RyanAir into Memmingen which is considered “Munich West” and is about an hour outside the city centre. We rented a car (huge passenger van) for the trip so loaded all our suitcases, car seats and both girls in for a speedy journey down the autobahn. Once in Munich, we only used the van the first two days when we visited the Bavarian palaces and castles, Nymphenburg Palace and Schloss Neuschwanstein. The other days we were able to walk from our rental apartment right in the heart of the old town, near the Marienplatz.
Kid Accessibility
Even in the snow (which moved in overnight after we arrived and continued every day of our German trip) it was easy to get around Munich with kids in the buggies/strollers. We had brought two buggies for the girls but because we were so close to everything in Munich, we rarely took both. Usually I carried/wore Sugarplum or Honeybun walked.
Taking a buggy into most restaurants and museums wasn’t a problem though we did choose to fold it up to get it out of the way most of the time while eating.
Eating in Munich with kids
In Munich, we mostly stuck to local restaurants and traditional beer halls. Our kids were always welcomed and Honeybun easily found things she enjoyed eating from sausages to the giant pretzels and even tried some new foods she hadn’t had much experience with before like sauerkraut and pork knuckle.
Preparing for a trip to Munich with Kids:
I’m big on planning our trips ahead of time because traveling with kids makes things just a little bit more complicated as they aren’t always very patient when you don’t have a plan so I always did a lot of research and planning before our trips. Check out my tips and advice for:
- Finding the perfect hotel
- Pre-Planning as much as possible and finding the best Sights to See
- Packing for the kids
What to see and do in Munich with Kids:
We spent four days exploring Bavaria before heading on to the next stop on our tour of Germany.
We filled our four-days in Munich with kids as follows:
Day 1:
Settling in and Exploring
We arrived mid-morning and had about an hour drive into the city. Once we found our apartment and a place on the street to park our over-sized van (which wouldn’t fit in the city parking garages!) we settled into our hotel. That evening we set out into Munich and explored what we near by. We got some dinner and wandered around the Christmas Market before turning in for the night.
Day 2:
We had planned the second day to visit both Nymphenburg Palace and the Olympic complex in Munich but spent most of the morning at the rental car counter at the Munich airport trying to get another can that would actually fit in the parking garages. We lucked out and a smaller van was returned while we were arguing but it wasted a good amount of our morning.
Nymphenburg Palace
We decided to spend the rest of our day at Nymphenburg Palace and it was well worth the visit. It was a snowy day and we barely saw another visitor the entire time we were there. Honeybun had become accustomed to visiting old palaces and historic buildings after our trips to Paris and London and loved exploring the old palace though her favorite part by far was the carriage house which holds many sleighs and carriages from German kings of centuries past.
Hofbrauhaus
That evening we ventured into the Hofbrauhaus for a beer. We weren’t sure how long we’d stay with the girls but ended up having dinner there and spending hours visiting with our table mates, a young couple from the UK who were worried about not being able to travel once they started a family.
Day 3:
Our third day in Munich with kids, we picked my parents up from the Munich airport before heading out into the snowy Bavarian countryside to visit Schloss Neuschwanstein.
Schloss Neuschwanstein
We arrived at Schloss Neuschwanstein mid-day, in the middle of a snowstorm. The buses that usually run to the castle were not running due to the snow and we knew we wouldn’t be able to push the buggies up the snowy mountain so our only other option was to take the horse-drawn carriage. Riding up on the horses was an adventure in itself and one Honeybun was super excited about!
Buggies/strollers are not allowed in the castle and you can only visit on a guided tour so Honeybun had to walk and I carried Sugarplum. The tour of the castle was interesting enough to keep Honeybun from getting bored but short enough that we didn’t have to worry about her losing control and we tried to keep her interested by pointing out the little details most people wouldn’t notice or care about like the elaborate ceilings (a trick we learned in Paris: have little ones look up!)
We had lunch at a little restaurant halfway down the mountain before hopping back in the carriage for to journey back to the car and the drive back to Munich where we took it easy for the rest of the day at our apartment.
Day 4:
Our last day in Munich, we stayed in the city centre.
Marienplatz
In the morning on our last day, we headed into the Marienplatz to wander the Christmas Market and see the Glockenspiel. The girls also really enjoyed the elaborate department store window displays that were put up for Christmas time. We also stopped back by the Hofbrauhaus for lunch though it was much more crowded so we had a quick lunch then were on our way.
Deutsches Museum
In the afternoon, we visited the Deutsches Museum which is on Museum Island, about a 10-15 minute walk from the Marienplatz. We all absolutely loved the museum which centers on technology and science over six floors and covering astronomy; glass and ceramics; aviation; marine navigation; machinery and tools. I think we saw every inch of the museum and were not bored for a single second!
Day 5:
Dachau Concentration Camp
The fifth day of our trip, we packed up and headed towards our next stop. On the way, we stopped at Dachau Concentration Camp.
Most people wouldn’t think to take small children to a concentration camp but I had visited previously and knew that it was not outwardly scary, the chilling part comes from understanding what happened there which our very young daughters didn’t understand at the time. They were fairly oblivious to the entire thing and Honeybun found her own amusement. We chose not to take the girls in the crematorium but did take them in the dormitories and answered Honeybun’s questions truthfully but age appropriately (like why the beds were so long.)
They obviously don’t remember being there but we often talk about our trips and I remind them the places they’ve been and will do the same with Dachau when the time comes for them to learn about the Holocaust. I believe that even if they don’t remember being in a place, seeing pictures or merely knowing they were once there will help them to make a personal connection with the past and better internalize history.
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