When I was in Munich, I didn’t visit the famed ‘Sleeping Beauty Castle’ aka Schloss Neuchwanstein – I was persuaded to go check out the Dachau Concentration Camp instead. But I still wanted to see something royal so I decided to head to the nearer Schloss Nymphenburg.
NYMPHERNBURG PALACE
The Nymphenburg Palace was one of the summer palaces for the Bavarian rulers, and even though it was winter time when I visited, it was still very beautiful, even if all my photos ended up looking kinda grey.
A river of ice
I spent a lot of my time just wandering around outside the palace grounds at first, taking in the lake and the gardens and the brisk crisp winter air. Lots of ducks, swans, seagulls and other assorted birds in the lake in front of the schloss, and they are obviously used to harassing people for food which is funny to watch.
Lots of puddles and melted ice everywhere
This curious swan came by to see if I had food – this is one of my favourite shots of the trip, taken on the Lomography La Sardinia
The Entrance
You can explore the gardens outside for free – there were plenty of joggers in the area even in winter – but you have to pay to enter the rooms and museum inside. It costs 8.50 euros for the combined ticket that includes the carriage museum during winter. If you come in summer, the ticket actually costs more at 11.50 euros in the summer because you will have more grounds to access.
There was an audio tour available, but I was feeling a little lazy that day so I elected to just wander around on my own and figure things out or occasionally stand close to any nearby English speaking tour guides if I wanted a bit more explanation. I don’t really have a detailed treatise on the history or culture that I learned here – that’s not really my thing – but I can tell you that some of the rooms are very beautiful in that rich royal European way. There was quite a lot to read so I don’t think I needed the audio guide.
This is the famous great gallery of beauties, wherein King Ludwig I displayed 36 portraits of who he considered the most beautiful women. It’s an interesting idea to see what one man defines as beautiful
Entertaining myself with mirror selfies – you do what you need to do when you’re travelling solo
I really like how this chandelier shot came out
I did head back outside to the back gardens for a bit – the initial plan was to find a nice spot, sit down and catch up on journalling and drawing, but it was TOO damn COLD. No way I could take my gloves off, and it definitely wasn’t much of weather for wandering outside. I ended up taking a walk around the gardens instead and heading back into the Carriage Museum to warm up.
There were much larger and more impressive carriages, but I think this weird car was probably my favourite
Not many people were in the carriage museum, it was surprisingly quiet and I was tempted to snooze at points where there were seats to sit down in and it was comfortably warm in the building. Still, it is a fairly interesting collection of artifacts belonging to the royals if you like your history and looking at stuff only rich people can afford.
I think summer would probably be nice – the gardens look like they would be quite pretty then.
GETTING TO NYMPHENBURG PALACE
I took the local tram service (Tram #17 from the North entrance of the main train station Haufbanhof, a few minutes walk from the Euro Youth Hotel) instead of the subway and found myself on a bridge facing the castle. It was a bit of a walk to get to the main building itself, alongside a long iced up river, which led to a large lake in front of the castle.
Exploring more of Munich? Check out all my Munich posts.
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