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Englischer Garten - a park for strollers, bikers and joggers

However you take your exercise - the Englischer Garten (English Garden) is a park for all ages and all speeds. You best enter the park at Haus der Kunst (Prinzregentenstraße). The main entrance is at the left wing(west) of this museum; if you visit the park on Saturday or Sunday afternoons you better choose the path at the right side (east) because there you can admire the artistic skills of waveriders on the Eisbach (Ice Creek) which runs here into the park. Nearly all paths lead you to the big meadow where on warm and sunny days many people lie in the sun - many of them textile free ("meadow of the naked"). At the far end of the meadow to the right you see on a little hill a tiny round temple, the Monopteros. You should walk up to that monument and have a short rest on its steps because from here you have a good - and famous - view over the silhouette of the city with its many spires and towers (tip for photographers: be here at sunset!). Stroll - or run - on along the main path to the Chinesischer Turm (Chinese Tower) where you can recreate in the big beer garden. In case you have not much time or you are tired from too much beer you can walk from here to the park exit Universität/Ludwigstraße (Underground lines 3 and 6). We suggest to stay in the English Garden and to walk on between the groups of old trees and the extensive meadows (ideal for ball sports) untill you reach Kleinhesseloher See. Here you can rent a boat and row on this nice lake or you can have a meal and a drink at the Seehaus (good restaurant and beergarden) at the shore of the lake. From here you can leave the park to Münchner Freiheit/Feilitzschplatz and have ice cream at one of the street cafés on Leopoldstraße.
The real sports people and English Garden lovers keep on running or walking in the park. You pass the Hirschgarten (beer garden) and can keep on for many kilometers untill you reach the city of Freising (30 kilometers down the Isar river). Connoisseurs of world literature will remember the first pages of "Death in Venice" by Thomas Mann. They of course will - like Gustav Aschenbach (and Thomas Mann) - walk from Hirschgarten to Nordfriedhof (North Cemetery) from where they will - like Aschenbach - go back to the city (nowadays not by tram but by bus or subway line 6).
By the way, the idea for this great park had an American officer, Benjamin Thompson, made peer by Bavarian king Max I. as Count Rumford. More than 200 years ago he initiated the transformation of the ducal hunting grounds into this public park. Thank you Mr Thompson, alias Graf Rumford! (monument in front of hotel Bayrischer Hof, Promenadenplatz) and thank you King Max I.!(statue in front of the opera).

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