Munich shopping - best and cheapest in W. Europe

OK it's a puff piece, but is it right?

Telegraph - Schnapp it up

did they shop or just eat? Seems the mom was more interested in the food.

There are some inexpensive places to shop, but you will look like every other German on the street then, and the quality is not that great. Don't expect something from H+M to last a whole season with weekly washings.

i think the point is that comparing price for price with the uk, it is cheaper here. sheesh, i could tell you that

besides this is some richy rich surrey urban 4x4 driver and her snobby daughter (this is a torygraph article) on a shopping weekend, miu miu shoes, wtf!

I don't know where women summon the energy to go shopping. These women spent the entire day shopping, and covered pretty much all of note in central Munich. I'm both exhausted and bored after about 45 minutes.

And as grazzenger pointed out, these are not your "average" shoppers. For people who don't want to spend €100 on a jumper, I would rank Munich at the bottom of the list of German cities. Köln comes top for the largest number of affordable shops, in my experience.

Excellent! Read the whole story from front to back and sideways.

I've got this awful snotty-nosed, 'my shit don't stink' bitch of a sister-in-law, and she is a Daily Torygraph reader. Currently planning the most devious of wind-ups here.

Not too many designer shopping fans here then!

@Sin

spot on sin!! do let us know how the wind up turns out and what exactly you deviously planned

Er... moderators... er... guys.

That bit that you decided to quote in my last offering was actually original. As in, I wrote it.

Still, logical conclusion for you to dive over the precipice for I suppose. I should try it more often to catch you with your trousers around your ankles a bit more. And you never know, this could turn out to be fun.

I reckon Munich shopping's well OK. The only thing I really miss here compared to the Uk are slightly dodgy shops selling t-shirts for a tenner when the same one will cost you 20 quid in a proper shop.

I think that in peoples rush to slag off Munich they tend to idealise as Britain / America / whereever that is often a figment of their imagination.

Send the Torygraph readers down the PEP in Neuperlach and watch their lips curl mind.

Nope, Munich shopping is utter arse, or at least xmas shopping is utter arse here. It is the worst city I have ever lived in for xmas shopping, having to go from one place to another in a criss cross pattern around the whole bloody city going from sub zero outside temperatures to blazing inferno heating systems in every shop. Madness. No simple sprawling shopping centres where everything is under one roof. Kaufinger strasse? They wanna put a nice roof on it is what they wanna do.

Oh, and you can only buy toys here if they are made of wood.

Actually, I simply hate shopping in any country really, but I seriously think Munich is poor. My mum shops professionally, and she was very underwhelmed shopping here.


True enough, but there are two side to that fence, and enough people rush to slag off their home countries (well Britian anyway) as a hellhole where you will get beaten up if you are brave enter to go to a pub, and see Munich through tinted shades of the rose variety.

i agree, munich shopping is pathetic, particulalry the department stored tropics in the winter
but to me even the article above shows there isn't much to shop here for unless you are ready to "snap up" a pair of miu miu shoes, wooden toys, apple strudels and cashmere jumpers...and i don't know many people who can juts run out and get a pair of 300-400 euro shoes...besides kaufinger strasse and a few overpriced yuppie/preppie Schwabing boutiques, there is not much else. as far as "idealising" your home country in this respect, completely disagree, munich with its sterile fashion sense will never measure up to the shops of san francisco and new york...and there is stuff for everyone too.

Right on. I'm surprised the people here don't die of malnutrition, surviving as they do on a diet of apple strudel and wooden toys. I'm so glad I have all my food imported from good old Blighty!

Seriously though, what can't you buy here? And if you want shopping centres, go to PEP or OEZ. Tell me, which city has a shopping centre slap bang in the middle of the city? And it's an eyesore, isn't it? Give me Munich any day!

And you think that if it has a name brand label on it that it actually equates to better quality? I find that the stuff from the budget places lasts just as long as the labeled gear.

The tone of that article made my stomach churn. Uggh. If I saw those two "snapping up" their stripy Strennesse jumpers I would throw red paint on them, or something. Stay home!!!

I tend to shop at Ludwig Beck, they have a line called Classics, and its classic, great in the wash, heck a few of my tops are over 10 years old, and they still look great and wash great. I would rather spend 10 Euro an a nice shirt there than 15 Euro on some 'cute' top from H+M that falls apart after 2 washes.

I AM NOT looking for ghastly shopping centers, or centers of any kind...i am not a mall shopper. what can't i buy here?? let's see, interesting, creative or VINTAGE clothing! (and by vintage i don't mean 70s polyester shirts)...and even regular shops here are very boooorign and overpriced (except of course H&M and such which everyone wears though)

so glad i am a boring middle-aged cnut now and can shop for clothes virtually anywhere in the world and usually find something i like.

It's not what you can buy here, I'm sure that if you have enough time to travel all over Munich you can find everything you're looking for. It's a matter of time. Since you have such a small window of shopping time (namely Saturdays if you work during the week and don't get home until around 7:00) you don't have time to look around, compare, or travel to other areas of Munich to find what you're looking for. Further, since everyone is doing their shopping on Saturday the lines make it impossible to visit more than 2 or 3 stores.

I really can't be bothered with it which means I spend a lot less money. Good for me, bad for the economy but heck, that's certainly not a priority here.

Saturday shopping is mental in any city and the run up to Xmas more so. Try doing Oxford Street in London the week before Xmas!

I think the trick in Munich is to know when to go to the stores. Get off work early Mon-Tues-Weds is my reccomendation.

They're open till 8pm , six days a week so you CAN get to them. Note: Closing time of departments stores in Bristoll , UK: Only open till 8PM ONCE a week!

I'm usually against shopping centres and malls. But if Kaufingerstrasse is busy with mom, pop, kiddies and granny and dog and pushchair who all came in on the hay cart from Oberfickenhausen and getting between the stroes is a hassle, malls can be OK, especially in bad weather.

I <heart> Riem Arcaden which ideal if you live along the U2.

You're right, taking time off work is an option in an emergency but it's not something I feel comfortable doing very often.

Like many others I work outside Munich and commute via S-Bahn. I can not get into town before 7:00-7:15 unless I leave work early at which point shopping for anything that isn't in-out is just not possible. My office is also not close to anything so shopping in my lunch hour is ímpossible.

Like I said it virtually eliminates any browsing type shopping and keeps me down to my necessities. For an ex-compulsive shopper I'm not saying this is a bad thing.

I just dont "get" shopping as an activity. I would rather have root canal treatment out of choice.

The holiday they recommend at the end is £496 a head for two nights...in fucking Munich? Jaysus H. Christ. We should mail 'em the Easyjet address and 3 Lions' phone number - Munich, and all the main sights, for under €100...with accommodation and a fry up in the mornings.

Stay for a week and you'll go home walking funny, but hey, at least you'll have saved some money.

Well, if munich was the best place to shop in Western Europe, thenwhy is it so hard to find Star Wars figures? Bastard German toy shops selling "educational" toys. Whats more educational than learning about the morals of right and wrong, all set in a wonderful world of lightsabres and girls wearing skimpy bikini's dancing for oversized slugs?

I actually think that Slough is better for shopping than Munich.

general clothes shopping is accomplished about 3 times a year in 2 hour stints with a defined wad of cash or i will go over the top. always done alone and with a clear idea before of what i would like.

it's not painless but it reduces the amount of time you need to spend in this stressful environment.

i didn't realsie those torygraph sluts had spent that much! nice post jimbo.

Reading between the lines, I believe you wanted to type "always done without the pestering interference of the wife, thus instantly cutting the time required to shop by 97%".

i don't know where you get that impression from...

i just prefer to shop alone without any fecking interference.

What got me most was how hugely impressed she was with every fucking business or establishment that had been established several hundred years ago... Has she not been to fucking London? Jesus, her fucking post is delivered into her snivelling little Nazi hands every morning by a postman working for a company that was, sort of, established in 1516. Stupid cow.

Lets face it mate, she was also rather impressed to find a shop selling stuff made of wood, and what she describes as discovering an "enchanting jumble of curios", or "tat" as its more commonly known. Crap made of wood, and tat. Jesus, she'd get positively moist at the shitty xmas markets here.
Her daughter apparently likes "urban chic with a nod towards traditional costume", which I presume to mean that she fancies one of them porn dirndls.


Hand painted wooden fucking figures. WHAT ABOUT PLASTIC STAR WARS FUCKING FIGURES. They also bought a green cardigan, and some moisturiser from a pharmacy. Well worth the trip from London I'd say.

You could use that phrase to describe the Nazi party, couldn't you. Especially so when it's being spouted forth from the mouth of a card carrying Nazi (OK, well, she's not a Nazi, but she writes for the Telegraph, and it's all about degrees of separation innit?).

Well the moisturiser is over a third cheaper than UK retail.*

*yes you all knew that I would know that

Best? Used to avoid shopping in Germany totally for a long time cause you had absolutly no selection at all (gotta admit though the shopping-situation improved vastly over the last 10 years) Cheapest? Maybe, but only if you keep in mind the salary levels in UK and Germany.

so who's forwarding the link to this page to the torygraph then? i think we should coagulate a larger spillage of bile before releasing it though.

An admitted advantage of Munich retail, though when you've just paid £8 less than £1000 for two people, you'll be needing to buy an awful lot of Nivea to make it worth your while.

Though being a snivelling, wrinkled, bitter, Tory, she probably needs quite a large quantity of the stuff to keep her 'moistened'...

But you do not fork out a couple of hundred quid for a flight though. What is the effin point of coming all the way over to Germany adn buying moisturiser.

It's like those stupid bloody tourists that go to exotic places and eat from McDonalds and Burger King. Useless b'stards

Well seeing as they are indeed Torygraph readers, I don't really care.
Nivea is cheaper here (and they don't sell half the range in the UK).
80 tubes of Dr Hauschka Rose Cream would mean £400 saving (UK price £15, German price 15€) and would fit into hand luggage if you took them out of the boxes. I guess.

TMI Jimbo, I am bloody well EATING!

I reckon though if you didn't throw out money like they did buying stuff like higher end cosmetics in Munich could see you re-coup a lot of the flight cost. And if you want standard stuff like H&M shirts you can well save money shopping here.

The German experience is WELL underrated, My mum at home home has discovered Tchibo and she <hearts> it! She asked me the other week if I'd ever head of 'em!

I don't think anyone is coming to Munich *just* to shop - it's a holiday as well. The article was about shopping, but I'm sure they did the touristy stuff as well. And anyway, even if you come only for the shopping, then a trip to Munich is probably more enjoyable than to Milton Keynes.

Before I moved to Germany, I used to combine visiting relatives in Germany with going shopping. I'm far from a shopaholic, but in Germany the choice and quality is higher and the prices lower. I would just avoid buying stuff in the UK and wait until I was here. But I wasn't intending to recoup the cost of the flight.

So there we have it people, tell all your friends and rellys to come to visit without luggage so that they can stock up on, what was it again?

Hand cream
H&M shirts
Hand painted wooden figures
Tat

Nah man, not convinced.


Examples would be good for this thread. As a generalism, I think choice here is still crap, although as somebody said, its got better in the last 10 years or so. Thats more a food comment really though, s I don't shop for much else.

Used to do this just the other way around... but as I said, the situation improved within the last few years over here.

Don't forget the fabulous C&A underwear!

Some high end alcoholic drinks, smokes etc.

Now there's no real duty free in Europe any more, the perfume section at Müller at Hbf has just as wide a selection of perfumes than you'd find in a major Boots in the UK - and the prices are lower!

Not enough bargain buckets but for mainstream CDs they spank the arse off HMV on price too.
And if you want something funky and original go to some of the smaller shops likes Optimol in GBV!

Apart from the fact that you're just being a mardy bum Don_Riina the absence of Star Wars figures is just local market forces in it.
Try getting Bayerische O'bazda in Kwik Save in the UK innit!

Don't you tarnishing the good name of market forces to explain the lack of Wars figures here son. It's just another symtom of Germany's rubbishness, and you know it.

Surely the crappy wooden figures are cheaper here than abroad?

And those embroidered doily things are cheaper as well.

In fact, all that crap you can buy at Christmas Markets are much cheaper here than anywhere else.

Some solid examples would be good though. So far, Monkstown and Katrina have provided a couple, and of course the mad lady who wrote the article has painted a prosaic pciture of some quaint little village of a city, with 500 year old glove shops, shitty non star wars wooden figs, and restaurants where dogs run about under the tables in total disregard for EU health & safety regulations regarding food service. some decent hard examples of whats good to buy in Munich, or not, would be a nice contribution.
I cannot make any such addition to this thread because

a - I only buy food, and whats good or not is gonna be covered in my ace TV program which I have not gotten around to doing yet

b - I'll just start banging on about something or other irrelevant

Malt Whisky is slightly cheaper and many spirits are also cheaper - taxation difference
Cigarettes are cheaper (but not as cheap as in Czech Republic etc.) - taxation difference
High-end chocolate is cheaper and more readily available - local product
Shoes are not cheaper apart from hiking boots - local product, local market
Certain cosmetics are cheaper, paricularly German brands such as Lancaster - local product
Clothes from Zara or Mango are cheaper than in the UK (but not as cheap as in Spain) - Euro zone

The "touristy stuff" is in the article, too, you just have to read "between the shops". Basically, they peeped into Peterskirche, went into two other churches to rest their "aching legs", and saw the Glockenspiel marionettes "performing their daily dance". The remaining non-shopping activities were food-related: they went to Tambosi and two restaurants, had roast chestnuts, some glühwein, and bought "sweet mustard and a spicy sausage" (hmm, it doesn't say whether or not they ate them on the spot). They did walk up and down a lot but since they're always describing some shop or other
(est. 1090 B.C.), I'd say those bits don't really qualify as sightseeing.

Yes, that's what they wrote about, but the subject of the article was specifically about shopping rather than sightseeing. Since they only described one 12-hour period in that article, I'm sure they did other stuff the rest of the time. In other words, the writer only described one aspect of the trip. That's not an unusual approach in travel writing.

With regards to prices, I can't think of many things that are cheaper in the UK than in Germany, and even in those instances there's certainly a quality issue to consider. Price isn't everything.

Quality of malt whiskey, H&M shirts, and nivea handcream is likely to be rather similar here or in the UK though. I cannot think of a time when I have thought that something here was better quality than anywhere else on that front. Levi jeans are levi jeans.
Infact, "market forces" in Germany would seem to suggest that many, many people will completely forego quality for price in Germany, in very many things. Look at Aldi. They sell Tevion/Medion brand rubbish that is severely lacking in quality - but its cheap...and sells. Look at service - OK, its not a product as such, but its often lower quality, and at a lower price, so happily accepted.

I'm not having a dig at your comment, I just don't do much shopping, and cannot really think of examples of where quality is a defining or contributory point to the argument that shopping in Munich is great, although I am sure that to the connoisseur, the hand painted figures here are exquisite.

May the (market) force be with you!

Question: Just out of interest, what with Germany being so rubbish and all, why do you choose to live here? Or isn't it through choice?

@Don - shopping in Munich is shit. Shopping in London isn't. It's that fucking simple. I know I'm a Londoner and you can accuse me of bias if you want, but I've got ten times the choice in nearly any good you care to mention and for me choice is THE most important thing (assuming quality on most goods (that I buy)is the same wherever you go. As Don rightly points out Diesel jeans are Diesel jeans wherever you are in the world.

I'm about to go out shopping, and I might buy an iPod Nano whilst I'm out - let's see what the prices are like - back in a mo *Jimbo furiously googles*

Yes, but those items are all cheaper here in Germany. What I meant was that those items that are more expensive in Germany are pricier because they are better quality.


Very true.


I'm also a Londoner, and I prefer shopping in Germany. Not Munich necessarily (I said way back on page 1 that, as far as Germany goes, Munich is not the best city), but Germany generally. Yes, Diesel jeans are Diesel jeans, but they are cheaper in Germany than in Britain.