Munich's Secret Places

At the southern entrance to the Englischer Garden, a stretch of the Eisbach canal creates a genuine standing wave — a permanent, unbroken wall of moving water strong enough that it was ranked among the world's best surf spots, remarkable simply for existing in the middle of a landlocked European city.

For decades this was one of Munich's signature sights: wetsuit-clad surfers taking turns riding the same wave, watched by a permanent crowd leaning over the footbridge above. It's a genuinely local scene, not a staged tourist attraction — the surfers are locals, and the crowd is a mix of residents and visitors who stumbled on it.

Important to know before you go: surfing on the wave has been prohibited since a fatal accident in April 2025, and remains suspended while the city works with safety researchers on reopening conditions. The wave itself, the footbridge, and the surrounding park are still completely free and open to visit — you just won't currently see anyone riding it.

Built between 1733 and 1746 by the Asam brothers as their own private chapel — not a commission, a personal project — this church has a street frontage barely wider than the buildings flanking it, giving no hint of what's inside.

Step through the door and the space opens into a swirling, gilded, deep-crimson Baroque interior: frescoed ceilings, twisting columns, and a dramatic light shaft over the altar, all built to a scale that feels far larger than the church's tiny footprint suggests from outside.

Because it's still an active parish church, not a museum, it costs nothing to step inside — you're simply asked to keep your voice down and avoid visiting during Mass.

Opened in the 16th century and expanded through the 19th, this cemetery holds the graves of major figures in Munich's cultural history, including the architect Leo von Klenze, the painter Carl Spitzweg, and the architect Friedrich von Gärtner — a concentration of 19th-century Bavarian cultural history in one walkable space.

It closed for new burials in the 1940s, and today functions more like a park: tree-lined gravel paths, elaborate 19th-century tomb sculpture, and a stillness that's rare this close to the center of a major city.

Locals read on benches here and cut through on their way elsewhere; it's treated as a quiet green space first and a historic site second, without ever feeling neglected.