The English Garden, Kunstareal Museums and Nymphenburg Palace

Once you have explored the Altstadt, Munich opens out into three grand cultural and green zones designed by the Wittelsbach kings in the 18th and 19th centuries: the sprawling Englischer Garten to the north-east, the Kunstareal museum quarter in Maxvorstadt to the north-west, and the summer estate of Schloss Nymphenburg to the west.

The Englischer Garten: from the Eisbach wave to Kleinhesseloher See

Created in 1789 by Sir Benjamin Thompson (Count Rumford) and landscape architect Friedrich Ludwig von Sckell as a free public park, the English Garden stretches 5.5 km from the back of the Hofgarten to the northern suburbs, making it larger than New York's Central Park. Enter at its southern corner on Prinzregentenstraße next to the colonnaded Haus der Kunst:

• The Eisbachwelle (Eisbach Wave): where the fast-flowing man-made Eisbach stream shoots out from an underground arch beneath the bridge, a submerged stone step creates a permanent standing wave. Day and night, summer and snow, experienced local river surfers queue on the banks to drop into the cold Alpine current (watching from the bridge is free; swimming or entering the wave as a beginner is dangerous and prohibited).
• Monopteros and the Chinese Tower (Chinesischer Turm): follow the meadow paths north to the circular Greek-style Monopteros temple on a grassy mound for a postcard view of the Altstadt church spires, then drop down to the 25-metre wooden pagoda of the Chinese Tower, ringed by a 7,000-seat beer garden and a brass band playing from the first-floor balcony on sunny weekends.
• Seehaus and Kleinhesseloher See: another twenty minutes north on foot or bike brings you to a calm boating lake and the lakeside Seehaus beer garden, where locals watch sunset over the water.

The Kunstareal (Museum Quarter) in Maxvorstadt

Clustered around Königsplatz and Barer Straße sits one of Europe's greatest concentrations of art museums (note that most close on Mondays, while Sunday admission at the state galleries is reduced to a symbolic fee):

• Alte Pinakothek: one of the world's premier Old Master galleries, holding Albrecht Dürer's iconic 1500 Self-Portrait in a fur-trimmed coat, Altdorfer's sweeping Battle of Alexander at Issus, Bruegel's Land of Cockaigne and soaring halls of Peter Paul Rubens.
• Pinakothek der Moderne and Museum Brandhorst: four museums under one modernist roof (20th-century art, design, architecture and works on paper), paired across the lawn with the colourful ceramic-rod facade of the Museum Brandhorst, famous for its dedicated upstairs hall of Cy Twombly's giant rose canvases and over 100 works by Andy Warhol.
• Lenbachhaus: housed in the Tuscan-style villa of painter Franz von Lenbach with a golden wing by Norman Foster, holding the world's finest collection of the Blaue Reiter (Blue Rider) group: Wassily Kandinsky, Franz Marc, Gabriele Münter and Paul Klee.

Schloss Nymphenburg and BMW Welt

Hop onto Tram 17 from Karlsplatz (Stachus) or Hauptbahnhof for the 20-minute ride west to Schloss Nymphenburg, built in 1664 to celebrate the birth of heir Max Emanuel. Tour the frescoed Great Hall, King Ludwig I's famous Gallery of Beauties, the exquisite Rococo hunting lodge of the Amalienburg (with its silver-and-blue hall of mirrors and Delft-tiled kitchen) in the park, and the Marstallmuseum of fairy-tale golden coronation coaches. To the north on U-Bahn line U3 sits Olympiapark and BMW Welt, where automotive engineering meets futuristic architecture.