Toytown Germany

The Munich English Garden is a huge park which stretches alongside the river Isar from almost the very center to the northernmost rim of the city. The park covers 3.73 square kilometers which makes it the largest city park in Europe and larger than New York's central park (3.4 square kilometers).

[img]http://www.toytowngermany.com/munich/englischer_garten.jpg[/img]

The English Gardens is one thing which makes Munich such a pleasant city to live in. During the summer you'll see students from the adjacent universty studying here. Other people play football, frisbee, horse riding, even cricket and surfing on the Eisbach river!

A particularly notorious activity is sunbathing in the nude. In the area in and around the horse track (near Universität) it is permitted to strip off naked. In German this is called FKK (Frei Körper Kulture = Free Body Culture).

[img]http://www.toytowngermany.com/munich/english_gardens_monopteros_nudity.jpg[/img]

The English Gardens were created in 1789 by the British physicist Sir Benjamin Thompson, the count of Rumford. Many Munich guide books will tell you that Sir Benjamin was American. Yes, he was born in Woburn Massachussetts but he was actually British and spent most of his life in London. Sir Benjamin was primarily a physicist but also worked as a government administrator. He spent 11 years in Munich organising the Bavarian army.

Some features of the English Gardens:

Chinese Tower
This pagoda was built when the gardens were created in 1789. Around the tower is now one of Munich's most popular beer gardens. Often a brass band will play live from the first floor of the tower.

[img]http://www.toytowngermany.com/munich/chinese_tower.jpg[/img]

Kleinhesselhoher See
An artificial lake built in 1802. Has three small islands. You can explore the lake in a hired paddle boat but disembarking on the islands is strictly [Verboten]. On the shores of this lake is another of Munich favourite beer gardens - the Seehaus. Both this beergarden and the one at the Chinese tower are equipped with WLAN.

Hirschau Beergarden
A third beergarden, somewhat more secluded, smaller, and quieter. Last year (2003) there was a jazz band playing at weekends.

Monopteros
On top of a small artificial hill is this artificial ancient Greek structure. Built in 1836 under orders from King Ludwig I. On a clear day you get a great view from here over the Munich skyline and off into the Alps in the distance.

Aumeister Beer Garden
Yet another beer garden! This is the last one. It's located at the northern edge of the English Gardens, near Studentenstadt/Freimann. Makes a good walking destination. Walking the entire length of the English gardens takes 1 to 2 hours.

Closures
In recent years more and more people have been using the park as a recreation area. In 2003 there were 3.5 million visitors. The authorities are now worried the grass is being excessively trampled and killed. Summer 2004 we may see some areas closed off to the public. Dogs are also a problem. Each day 500 kilos of cack are dumped in the park. A new law being introduced this year requires that dogs be kept on a leash. Failure to comply will result in a 25 Euro fine.

I think that's the right approach. Keep the damn dogs on a leash, at least in some parts of the park. It's also ok to fine the owners if there dogs crap in the park - in other cities people carry little bags and take care of it. Why not here?

i happen to be one of those "damn dog" owners and i am offended when people like you make generalizations. i am a very responsible dog owner: i keep my dogs out of the way of other pedestrians and bikers and i carry little bags and religiously "stoop and scoop" because i hate stepping in dog poop just as much as the next person. unfortunately, there are unresponsible owners out there and they make the rest of us look bad. my dogs are more well behaved than most children and yet kids are allowed to run all over the place and scream at the top of their lungs. if a biker had an accident because of my dog, i would get sued (even if my dog sustained worse injuries). if a toddler ran into the path of a biker and got injured, the biker would be at fault. but do i think that children should be restricted to certain areas or that they should be kept on leashes? no, of course not. to speak on a somewhat related topic, i am severely disappointed with the amount of litter and broken glass i find. at least dog poop is biodegradable but that other shit isn't; i think that there should be a higher crackdown on people that litter--from cigarette butts to entire bags of trash (yes, i have seen that).the germans do not live up to the stereotype of being neat and orderly people, in my opinion.

lighten up, or better yet, start drinking earlier. i am a dog owner and i too am a bit appalled at the very lackadaisical attitude some folks seem to have towards dog crap, but when in rome...

On some of the signs around the E.G. that have been there for years it actually states that dogs must be kept on a leash! As for comparing dogs to kids... hmmm... I agree that people should be more responsible with bottles and other rubbish, a good start would be more bins around the place.

Some Asian countries have the right idea -- they use dogs as food sources. Instead of letting dogs roam parks and crap all over, we should keep them in feed lots until we are ready to "harvest" them.

As a "soon to be" refugee from Brussels to the paradise of the fatherland, I can only applaud the approach of Elvis to dogs. Very happy to leave the town of the steaming dog turd (it's smeared everywhere).

hmmm i think ppl should just pick up their dog poop and if not then they should get fined. i saw a lady with a dog at the ubahn stop in hauptbahnhof and she was in a hurry to get to the ubahn but her dog pooped ( a big pile too) on the platform and what did the lady do? she just left it there!! GROSSSSS!

kinda sux to have to keep a dog on a leash in a park. i mean they need some space to run and play too instead of being trapped in city life all the time. sadly i kind of agree with the point being made that some dogs are better behaved than kids. and if a parent isn't watching their little brats they'll run right into u and of course its ALWAYS ur fault. however, if a dog runs into you (usually they are smart enough not to) then its the dogs fault.
anyway, i never thought of dog poop as being too much of a problem. i havent stepped in it yet so can't be too bad.

i'm a responsible dog owner, or so i like to think, but if my dog takes a crap off the path i tend to let it go. however, if he goes on the sidewalk or in a spot that is well traversed, i always clean it. funny thing is, when i do the cleaning up bit, people look at me as if i have three heads!

Thanks for the pictures of English Garden. I just put up a post on my website (which links to yours) with my only experience in the park; as it turns out, I was completely ignorant of the history of the park when I happened upon the nudists. According to another article that I linked to, the numbers of nudists are dwindling due in part to the flesh tourists. Strange that people would travel thousands of miles to see a bit of trim.

im a dog owner and this morning my baby pekingese was visciously attacked,by a English setter without a lead,the owner and 3 others stood and watched this happen while i was screaming for help,the owner then said sorry and started to walk away,i then screamed at her about the dog not being on a lead and her being irrisponsible,she did not care or show any remorse for her or her dogs actions,she only shouted her name and address at me ,i have lived in munich for 4 years now and have drawn the conclusion that these people are not people but a separate species,where is there humanity.

i think Germans and specially people from Munich tend to be arrogant and believe they´re the only one who are living in this world.
This happens with dogs, when they´re driving their bikes or simply when they´re walking and they come direclty in your direction and possibly hit you without saying sorry, or even looking at you.
I do not want to generalize, but a lot of people from other countries (or even Germans from other regions) agree with this opinion.

hi Marco, I agree with you about the pushy behaviour here but think it's just part of the culture. I wouldn't say it's all German people though...my friend here is from Cologne and she insists it is different there...she's not fond of the pushy thing at all.
in any case, I would say just push people back.
it's what I do.
and if they shout at you shout back...even if it's in your own language...give them the single-finger. that's my favourite thing to do..it's shocks them.

this is also my way of managing it. And - by the way - i lived one year in Cologne, and i confirm there is (slightly) different...

My teacher Herr Ruppert went floating down the Eisbach river nackt!! He said the water is cold and he said it felt nice. He is now my teacher and is married to Greta. He went to high shcool in New york and then went to Germany for college. He has been teaching for many years. He is also the coach of the boys basketball team.

welcome to the world of real problems...

I visited this park many years ago and loved it,
not many dogs crapping all over the place.To keep this fantastic park shite free please feel free to come to Scotland and off load it here as many of our parks and streets are full to the brim of the stuff.

It is gross when dogs crap in places where people want to sunbathe naked or else come running over sniffing you like you are another dog. I totally agree that dogs should be kept on the leash and owners should tidy up the poops. You don't have dogs on a busy beach so why here? There are plenty of other parks in Munich for dogs to use so why can't they go there? And why do the dog owners always walk through the naked part of the gardens?

o man there was dog poopie everywhere!!!!!!!!!

i went to munich this past august and i very much enjoyed my time in english gardens...such a beautifully preserved plot of land. the beautiful women that were sunbathing in the nude were quite worth the effort, i say.