Other famous tourist attractions include the English Garden (Englischer Garten – a garden park roughly in the center of the city that contains a nudist area, jogging tracks and bridle-paths), the Deutsches Museum (Science Museum), and the Rathaus-Glockenspiel, an ornate clock with moving figures atop the town hall. Perhaps Munich’s most famous attraction is the Oktoberfest, a 2-week-long fair with many rides and several very large tents. The Oktoberfest was first held October 12, 1810 in honor of the marriage of crown Prince Ludwig to Princess Therese von Sachsen-Hildburghausen. The festivities were closed with a horse race and in the following years the horse races were continued and later developed into what is now known as the Oktoberfest. Despite its name, Oktoberfest actually begins in September. It lasts two weeks and always finishes on the first Sunday in October.
Other famous buildings in Munich include the Frauenkirche (“Dom zu unserer Lieben Frau” – Cathedral of Our Lady) and the Olympiaturm (“Olympic Tower”), where visitors can be elevated ontop. It is also an important radio and TV broadcasting station.
The Frauenkirche is the most famous building in the city center. This is Munich’s central cathedral and is famous for its twin towers which are topped with brass minaret-type structures. At first glance the two towers appear to be the same height but in actual fact one is slightly taller than the other. Unlike most buildings in Munich’s old town, the towers of the Frauenkirche (but not the church itself) survived the war intact, making them more than 400 years old. The Frauenkirche’s towers (109 meters or 358 feet tall) are also the measurement for a new rule which limits the height of new buildings to the same height. This rule was passed in November 2004 by the people of Munich in a referendum (“Brgerentscheid”) organized by Georg Kronawitter, a former SPD mayor, against the will of the political parties in the city’s parliament (“Stadtrat”) who feared that it would harm the city’s attractiveness to investors.
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Twinned cities:
Berlin-Spandau, Germany, since 1952
Rijnsburg, the Netherlands, since 1963
Leeds, since 1966
Ypres, Belgium, since 1967
Zakopane, Poland, since 1989
Plauen, Saxony, Germany, since 1990
