Westpark is a wonderful place, especially for Kids
Westpark, located south of the center of Munich in Sendling, is not widely known among tourists.
Even though it's not one of the major tourist attractions, the park is well worth
a visit, especially if you bring kids.
Westpark is divided into Western and Eastern part, by the Mittlerer Ring (Ring Street around inner part of Munich). It's most easily reached with subway no. 6, getting of at the underground station Westpark.
We started our visit in the Western part, which was landscaped in the 90's to host the Bavarian Garden Festival.
Off course, the first thing I wanted to do was walking up on top of the artificial hills,
to have a view of the park.
Tobi was reluctant at first, but then he was quite happy when we found several slides up there ;-)
Plenty of small kids and some not so small kids like my man, where having a lot of fun sliding down... sorry, I wasn't allowed to publish any pictures of him acting like a 5-year-old :-)
On the back of the hills are several more playgrounds.
I could convince him, to leave the kids area and come with me to
the more grown-up parts of Westpark.
Everywhere you will find remainders from the Garden Festival, such as the Thai Temple or the Chinese Gardens, representing the four seasons.
I was very anxious to visit them, but unfortunately the Chinese Gardens are closed in winter :-(
As you can see on the photo to the right, it was still quite cold, when we went to Westpark this year.
The photo shows me in front of one of the several entrances to Westpark. These archways have a very interesting shape that gives you the impression of depth and a feeling of endlessness.
The Eastern part, which is reachable via a pedestrian bridge across Mittlerer Ring, is less fun-oriented. It has been left as natural and wild as possible.
A creek meanders through the park, giving a natural habitat to many local plants and small birds and insects.
It is a lovely place to walk along and relax.
At the very end of Westpark is a small artificial lake, where we admired model boat races.
From there it's just a few steps to the next bus station, so you don't have to walk all the way back to where you started, if you're already tired.