Deutsches Museum Verkehrszentrum

About this place

The Verkehrszentrum is the branch of the Deutsches Museum devoted to everything that moves on land, and it occupies three historic exhibition halls on the Theresienhoehe that were built in 1908 for Munich's trade fairs. The transport collection was moved out here from the parent building on the island in the Isar and opened in stages between 2003 and 2006, for the simple reason that the exhibits no longer fitted where they were. The three halls are divided by theme rather than by date: the first, Urban Transport, holds trams, buses, horse-drawn carriages and early underground carriages; the second, Travel, deals with rail and road and the long journey, with full-size steam locomotives standing on rails indoors; the third, Mobility and Technology, covers bicycles, motorcycles, racing cars and the idea of speed itself. The mixture of the huge vehicle and the small technical object is what makes the place work for a non-specialist. Children love it and adults find it far calmer than the crush at the parent museum. The point to note is that this is a separate site on a separate ticket: eight euros, and the main Deutsches Museum ticket does not cover it. It opens daily from nine to five and the Schwanthalerhoehe underground station is minutes away. One caveat: the museum backs onto the Theresienwiese, so during the Oktoberfest in late September and early October getting to it becomes a crowded slog.