Munich is an unusually easy city to see on foot. The old centre sits inside a ring road that traces the line of the medieval walls, and almost everything a first visitor wants is inside it or one short tram ride beyond. That compactness is a gift when you are travelling alone: you can spend a morning wandering without a plan and still end up somewhere worth standing.
The ten places below are ordered roughly as you would meet them, starting in the middle of the old town and working outwards to the parks and the mountains. None of them need a full day, so you can string three or four together and still have an afternoon left over.
Ten things to see
Marienplatz and the Glockenspiel
The main square is the hinge of the whole city, and the new town hall on its northern side carries the mechanical clock that draws a crowd every morning. Stand slightly back near the fountain rather than directly under the tower; you see the upper figures far better, and you are out of the crush.
The Frauenkirche
Munich's brick cathedral, with its two green onion domes, is the silhouette on every postcard of the city. The interior is plainer than the outside suggests, which is part of its appeal, and the twin towers are visible from most of the old town, so it doubles as a way of orienting yourself when you lose the thread of the streets.
Viktualienmarkt
A permanent open-air food market a couple of minutes south of Marienplatz, running on the same site for two centuries. Stalls sell cheese, bread, fruit, honey and flowers, and there is a beer garden at the centre where you may bring your own food and buy only a drink, which makes it one of the simplest solo lunches in the city.
The Englischer Garten and the Eisbach
One of the largest urban parks anywhere in Europe, running for several kilometres north from the city centre along the Isar. At the southern tip a standing wave on the Eisbach channel draws surfers in wetsuits all year round, which is a genuinely strange thing to watch several hundred kilometres from the sea.
The Residenz
The former royal palace of the Bavarian rulers, on the northern edge of the old town. It is enormous, and the sensible way to see it alone is to pick two or three of the numbered routes through the state rooms rather than attempting the whole circuit in one visit. The treasury is a separate ticket and a separate mood.
Nymphenburg Palace
A baroque summer palace on the western edge of the city, reached by tram in about twenty minutes. The building is worth an hour; the park behind it is worth two. Gravel avenues, canals and a scatter of smaller pavilions make it one of the better places in Munich to walk without deciding anything.
The Deutsches Museum
A vast museum of science and technology on an island in the Isar, with full-size aircraft, mining tunnels rebuilt in the basement and centuries of instruments. It is the kind of place where three hours disappears without warning, so go early in the day rather than after lunch.
Olympiapark
Built for the 1972 Games and still in use, with a sweeping tent-like roof over the stadium and a grassy hill that gives the best wide view of the city. On a clear day the Alps show along the southern horizon. The park is free to walk through, and the tower charges for the lift.
The Asamkirche
A tiny, ferociously decorated church wedged between shopfronts on Sendlinger Strasse, built by two brothers as a private chapel. It is easy to walk straight past the door. Inside, every surface is worked, and after the calm of the Frauenkirche the contrast is the point.
A day out to Neuschwanstein
The nineteenth-century castle in the foothills south of the city is the standard day trip, reachable by train and bus in around two hours each way. Go for the walk up through the gorge and the view back over the lakes as much as for the building itself, and book the timed entry before you travel rather than on arrival.
If you only have one day, take Marienplatz, the Viktualienmarkt and the Englischer Garten and let the rest go. Munich rewards a slow morning far more than a completed list.