Munich has one of the biggest, most vibrant gay communities in the world, centered around the classic gay neighborhood, Glockenbachviertel. You can dance, cruise, and hook up around the clock at bathhouses (Deutsche Eche, Schwabinger), dark-room bars (Camp, Ocsengarten), sex clubs (Duplexx), private clubs (Underground), and sex shops (Bruno's).
It also is one of the best cities in Europe for museum aficionados:
The Alte Pinakothek and the Neue Pinakothek (paintings).
The Residenz (the palace of the Bavarian kings)
The Glyptothek (ancient Greek and Roman)
Staatliche Sammlung für Ägyptische Kunst (Egyptian)
The Museum Funf Continente (non-Western)
The Bavarian National Museum (decorative arts)
The Lenbachhaus (a new museum of modern art)
And, while you're browsing for beefcake and paintings, don't forget to check out some of the best public penises in Europe. They're all in the same area, within a few minute's walk of the Residenz.
1. Hermann Hahn (1868-1945) sculpted a lot of Munich's public art, but he's most famous for the nude
Rossebändiger (
Horse Trainer) in the Beeldenpark sculpture garden, near the Alte Pinakotheken
2. Julius Troschel (1806-1863), a neoclassical artist, sculpted a soft, nude
Death of Adonis somewhere between 1840 and 1850.
3. Also Zethus and Amphion, the buffed twin brothers who founded Thebes They're both on display in the Neue Pinakothek
4. Bernhard Bleeker (1881-1968) also has a
Rossebandiger outside the Neue Pinakothek, and a
Speerträger(Spear Carrier), a young man with a penis but no spear, in Lietzensee Park.
5.
Harmlos (Harmless), in the park of Prinz Carl Palais, reflects the myth of Antinous, the brash, violent suitor of Penelope who tried to kill Telemachus in
The Odyssey. Franz Jakob Schwanthaler recasts him as a soft, "harmless" youth.
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6. Hans Wimmer (1907-1992) cast another soft, harmless youth, or
Jungling (1952), in the garden of the Lenbachhaus.
7. The Kuenstlerhaus on Lembachplatz offers us this buffed centaur.
8. Luitpoldbrücke, a stone arch bridge over the Isar River, has four figures, representing a hunter (Bavaria), a woman with a sword (Swabia), a fisherman (Franconia), and and a woman with grapes (the Palantine). Bavaria, by Hahn, is nude, but I think Franconia, by Balthasar Schmitt, is cuter.
9. The
Friedensengel (Angel of Peace), a 1899 monument in Maximilian Park in Bogenhausen, just on the other side of the Isar, contains allegorical murals depicting war and peace. This one, unfortunately, is war.
10. Reichenbachbrucke, another bridge over the Isar, contains another nude statue, and, in the summer, a steady stream of swimmers and splashers.
