Munich — Germany
Bavaria's capital organises itself around squares, inner courtyards and beer gardens rather than boulevards, with the Alps close enough to fill a day trip. It also rains more than most visitors plan for: the tally reaches 127 rainy days over 1 mm each year, adding up to 954.2 mm.
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Why go
Munich is a prosperous, orderly, fairly conservative city that nonetheless arranges its social life outdoors and around beer. The Englischer Garten runs for kilometres through the middle of it, with a standing wave on the Eisbach where people surf in wetsuits through winter. Bavarian dress is worn without irony. Shops shut on Sunday and the city does not apologise for it.
The trade is straightforward. You get a comfortable base with the Alps, the lakes and the castles within reach by train, museums with a technical or an art-historical bent, and the habit of sharing a long table with a litre of beer and the food you brought yourself. You pay for it in money and in hours: this is the German city where a budget goes least far, and the evenings end earlier than Berlin's. Anyone hunting cheap, edgy or nocturnal will feel short-changed. And if rain ruins your mood, the summer figures below deserve a careful read.
Month-by-month climate
The surprise in Munich is that summer is the wet season, not the dry one. May, July and August are the wet months here, and the numbers are blunt about it: August tops the list with 133.7 mm over 12 rainy days, May reaches 123.3 mm over 12 days, June 118 mm, and July takes the record for frequency with 14 days of rain above 1 mm. These are convective storms rather than steady drizzle, often in the late afternoon, which is why hot and wet coexist here. July is the warmest month at 25.8 °C by day and 15 °C at night, with August almost identical at 25.6 °C. January is the coldest, 4.9 °C by day and -1.3 °C at night. The driest months are February at 51.9 mm and April at 49.1 mm, 8 rainy days each, but both are cold. Across the year, 954.2 mm falls over 127 rainy days, and one month alone is both warm and reasonably dry: September, at 21 °C with 86.6 mm over 10 days.
| Month | Avg. high (°C) | Avg. low (°C) | Rainfall (mm) | Days ≥ 1 mm | Days ≥ 5 mm |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Jan | 4.9 | -1.3 | 63 | 11 | 4 |
| Feb | 8.0 | 0.5 | 52 | 8 | 3 |
| Mar | 11.4 | 2.2 | 43 | 10 | 3 |
| Apr | 15.8 | 5.1 | 49 | 8 | 3 |
| May | 19.3 | 8.8 | 123 | 12 | 8 |
| Jun | 25.0 | 13.9 | 118 | 11 | 7 |
| Jul | 25.8 | 15.0 | 110 | 14 | 7 |
| Aug | 25.6 | 14.8 | 134 | 12 | 7 |
| Sept | 21.0 | 10.9 | 87 | 10 | 6 |
| Oct | 16.1 | 7.1 | 60 | 10 | 4 |
| Nov | 8.7 | 2.3 | 60 | 10 | 4 |
| Dec | 5.7 | 0.2 | 57 | 11 | 4 |
Source: Meteostat — Munich (Germany) station, 1.9 km away, 10 sample years. Monthly totals rebuilt from daily averages.
When to go
Aim for the first days of September: 21 °C by day, 10 rainy days across the month, and a Theresienwiese still empty of the autumn festival and of the hotel prices that come with it. June is the warmest good-value option at 25 °C, accepting 11 days of rain. Skip late September and the first days of October unless the festival is the point of your trip, and book months ahead if it is.
The most favourable months, on these records
- September
What to see in 2, 4 and 7 days
In 2 days
- Marienplatz and the new town hall, then the Viktualienmarkt for lunch standing up among the stalls.
- The Residenz, the palace of the Bavarian rulers, whose interiors take longer than the guidebooks suggest.
- Walk the Englischer Garten north from the city, stopping at the Eisbach wave and a beer garden.
- Second morning at one of the Pinakotheken; pick one century and stay in it rather than covering all three.
- Late afternoon at the Asamkirche, a narrow baroque church built by two brothers as their own house chapel.
In 4 days
- Devote a day to the Deutsches Museum; it is a science and technology collection on an industrial scale.
- Take the suburban train to the Dachau memorial site, a half-day that sets the tone for the rest.
- Nymphenburg palace and its park, easily combined with the surrounding residential streets.
- An afternoon in Schwabing and around the university: bookshops, cafés, a different register from the centre.
- Olympiapark and the adjacent car museums if you have an engineering-minded traveller with you.
In 7 days
- Base yourself in Munich and use the trains: this is a hub city and the day trips are the point.
- Neuschwanstein and the Bavarian castles, a full day with timed entry tickets booked in advance.
- A lake day at the Starnberger See or the Tegernsee, both on direct suburban or regional lines.
- Garmisch and the high Alps for a day of cable cars, or a valley walk if the cloud is down.
- Salzburg makes an easy day by direct train across the Austrian border, and near enough that MUC, 112 km away, serves both cities.
- Keep the last day in town for the museums the rain forced you to skip.
Getting there and around
MUC sits 29 km from the centre, with suburban trains from both terminals running into the main station and Marienplatz. Two other airports appear in flight searches: INN at Innsbruck, 99 km away and across the Austrian border, and FMM at Memmingen, 101 km away, which low-cost carriers market under Munich's name. Both need a long coach or train transfer, so compare the true door-to-door cost before booking. In the city, the historic centre is compact and walkable, and the U-Bahn, S-Bahn and tram network covers everything beyond it on a single ticket. Cycle lanes are wide and used seriously.
Nearest airports
- MUCFranz Josef Strauss Airport29 km from the centre
- INNInnsbruck Airport99 km from the centre
- FMMMemmingen Allgau Airport101 km from the centre
Budget
Country price level compared with France : +2 %
Price index for restaurants and hotels, France = 1000, from European purchasing power parities. It is a country average: it says nothing about one hotel in particular.
The national figure is a floor here, not an average: Munich prices itself above the rest of Germany, which is already a shade dearer than France. For a room of the usual middle bracket, in or near the centre, the working span is 110 to 200 € a night — and considerably more during the autumn festival or a large trade fair, when sleeping in a neighbouring town becomes the sensible option. Eating adds 35 to 70 € per head a day. Beer gardens where you bring your own food are the one genuinely cheap way to eat well here. Read the brackets above as planning ranges: in the festival weeks they stop holding at all.
Common mistakes
- Booking a flight to FMM at Memmingen and discovering the transfer: it lies 101 km from the city, not in its suburbs.
- Arriving during the autumn festival without a room. Prices multiply and availability disappears months in advance.
- Sitting at a beer garden table laid with a cloth and unpacking your own picnic. Only the bare tables are self-service.
- Treating Neuschwanstein as a quick morning out. It is a full day from Munich and entry runs on timed tickets.
- Planning shopping or supply runs for Sunday, when almost everything except the station shops stays shut.
Frequently asked questions
Is Munich a good base for the Alps?
Yes, and that is arguably its strongest argument. Regional trains reach the lakes, the Bavarian castles and the first Alpine valleys without a car, and Innsbruck's airport is only 99 km away as a measure of how close the mountains sit. You can spend mornings in a major museum city and afternoons on a cable car. What Munich cannot give you is high-altitude scenery from your hotel window.
Does it really rain that much in summer?
It does, and that surprises people. July records 14 days with more than 1 mm of rain, August 12 days and 133.7 mm, the wettest month of the year. The rain usually comes as afternoon thunderstorms rather than all-day grey, so the practical answer is to plan outdoor time in the morning and keep a museum in reserve. In an Alpine thunderstorm a hooded jacket is more use than an umbrella.
Munich or Berlin for a first trip to Germany?
They answer different questions. Berlin is for twentieth-century history, contemporary art and late nights, spread across a huge city. Munich is for baroque and technical museums, alpine day trips and outdoor eating, in a centre you can cross on foot. If you have four days and want mountains in the picture, Munich. If you want the history of a divided Europe, Berlin.
Updated on 21 September 2026