Bavarian National Museum
The Wittelsbach royal collection went public in 1855 — and it never stopped growing.
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Founded by King Maximilian II, this ranks among Europe's foremost decorative arts museums. Its core is the Wittelsbach family's own art holdings, giving it weight well beyond Bavaria. The medieval through early modern European artifacts are the sharpest part of a sweep that runs from late antiquity to 1900.
What to look for
- Gabriel von Seidl's historicist building (1894–1900) on Prinzregentenstraße — considered one of the most original museum buildings of its era
- The structural split between two parallel collections: art-historical on one track, folklore on the other
- The restitution history: a bronze acquired by the museum in 1937 was returned in 2012 to the heirs of August L. Meyer, a Jewish collector whose holdings were seized by the Nazis before he was murdered in the Holocaust
Three floors and 13,000 sq meters; the Bavarian State Archaeological Collection occupies a separate new building directly behind the main museum.
Bavarian National Museum is one of 37 sights worth the detour in Munich, all bundled offline in Voyage GO — download the Munich pack and it sits on your map with no signal, filling your travel passport the moment you walk past.
More to see in Munich
- Allianz ArenaThe world's first stadium with a full color-changing exterior — 75,000 seats wrapped in inflated ETFE plastic panels that can change color across the entire facade.
- Deutsches Museum125,000 objects across 50 fields of science and technology — all on a former coal island in the Isar.
- Nymphenburg PalaceAt 632 metres across, this Baroque summer palace is wider than Versailles — and it started as a birth announcement.
- Alte PinakothekThe gallery that taught Europe how to build a museum — then filled it with five centuries of Old Masters.
- FrauenkircheThe twin towers top out at just over 98 meters — Munich caps the entire city at 99 m, so nothing can overtake them on the skyline.
- Englischer GartenA Massachusetts-born American Loyalist, fleeing Britain after the Revolution, drew up plans for what became one of the world's largest urban parks.