The Neptune fountain
A large 1937 fountain at its centre.
Rufus46 — CC BY-SA 3.0 · Ursula Jaeger — CC BY-SA 4.0 · DDRRei — CC0 · DALIBRI — CC BY-SA 4.0
The Old Botanical Garden is a small green space between the central station and Karlsplatz, and it is exactly what its name says: it was Munich's botanical garden from 1812 until 1914, when the plant collection moved to a larger site near Nymphenburg and this became an ordinary public park. Two elements survive from the past: a neoclassical gate at the southern entrance carrying a Latin inscription, and the large Neptune fountain of 1937 at its centre. The glasshouses and the Glaspalast that once stood here burned in 1931 in a deliberately set fire that destroyed an entire art exhibition inside it. Today it is a practical space more than a beautiful one: grass, mature trees and a summer cafe, used by travellers and office workers for a break. Its position between the station and the centre makes it a natural stop if you have time between trains — not a destination, but far better than waiting in the station concourse.
A large 1937 fountain at its centre.
A remnant of the original botanical garden.
Elisenstrasse, 80335 Munich
Karlsplatz (Stachus)Karlsplatz — which Munich locals call "Stachus" and nothing else — is the wester4 minutes walk4.6
Museum of Classical CastsThe Museum für Abgüsse displays plaster casts of Greek and Roman sculpture — not4 minutes walk4.8
KarlstorThe Karlstor is one of three surviving gates from the second medieval wall that 5 minutes walk4.5
Staatliche AntikensammlungenOn the south side of Koenigsplatz stands a Corinthian-columned building put up b5 minutes walk4.3
The BrunnenbuberlA small bronze fountain on the pedestrian Neuhauser Straße in central Munich, fr5 minutes walk4.7A vast iron and glass exhibition building erected in 1854 in imitation of London's Crystal Palace, used for major art and industrial exhibitions. In June 1931 it burned down entirely in a deliberately set fire whose perpetrator was never identified, destroying some three thousand German Romantic paintings on show inside — one of the gravest losses to German art in the twentieth century before the war.