The fresco
Ludwig the Bavarian's triumphal procession painted across the full inner face.
Burkhard Mücke — CC BY-SA 4.0 · Unknown authorUnknown author — Public domain · Flocci Nivis — CC BY 4.0 · Flocci Nivis — CC BY 4.0
The Isartor is the eastern gate of Munich's medieval wall, built in 1337 and the most complete of the city's three surviving gates: a main tower and two flanking towers with a court between. It takes its name from the nearby river Isar, whose travellers entered the city here. Its inner face carries a long nineteenth-century fresco of the triumphal procession of Emperor Ludwig the Bavarian — you stand in the street, look up, and read a whole story in colour. The gate closes the street called Tal, which leads to Marienplatz in ten minutes on foot, so you pass it naturally on any walk. Its towers hold a small, delightfully odd museum devoted to the Munich comedian Karl Valentin.
Ludwig the Bavarian's triumphal procession painted across the full inner face.
Main tower, flanking towers and court — the complete form of a medieval city gate.
A small, eccentric museum on Munich's most famous comedian, inside the towers themselves.
Tal 50, 80331 Munich
The Valentin-Karlstadt MusaeumThis museum sits inside the Isartor — one of the surviving gates of Munich's med1 minute walk4.7
Beer and Oktoberfest MuseumThe Beer and Oktoberfest Museum is a small museum in one of Munich's oldest hous1 minute walk4.4
Toy Museum MunichThe Toy Museum is a small museum inside the tower of the Old Town Hall, right on5 minutes walk4.5
Museum Five ContinentsThe Museum Five Continents is Munich's museum of the world's cultures beyond Eur5 minutes walk4.5
ViktualienmarktThe Viktualienmarkt is a daily open-air food market in the heart of the old town5 minutes walk4.5It does not need one — it sits on the way between Marienplatz and the river, so fold it into your route. Pausing at the fresco and walking the court takes minutes, and that is all it asks.
Karl Valentin was an early-twentieth-century Munich comedian whose influence in Germany is compared to Chaplin's. The museum is small and deliberately absurd even in how it displays things — better for lovers of oddities than seekers of a conventional museum.
The Viktualienmarkt food market is five minutes away, Marienplatz ten, and the Isar riverside walk starts right behind it — loveliest towards the Deutsches Museum.