5 Best Things to Do in Munich During Oktoberfest

Size is what makes the Englischer Garten work during Oktoberfest. At 375 hectares it simply absorbs people, and 200 m off the main paths in late September the Wiesn might as well be happening in a different city. The park is free and never closes. Its one crowded pocket is the Chinesischer Turm beer garden, which does fill up as a tent alternative during the festival, so route around it rather than through it if quiet is the point.

The Eisbach wave forms in the Eisbach channel at the southern edge of the park, on Prinzregentenstraße beside the Haus der Kunst. Watching from the bridge is free, unrestricted and unaffected by anything else described here. Surfing access is a separate question and needs stating carefully. The wave was closed after a fatal night-time accident in April 2025, disappeared that October during riverbed maintenance before reforming naturally, and reopened on 9 May 2026. The city's own sources have not caught up with each other: munich.travel lists it as open, while muenchen.de still states that surfing is not permitted. Access has been on and off since 2025, so anyone planning to surf should check Munich's current status first rather than trust a guide. Where surfing is allowed, the rules are 05:30-22:00 with no night riding, a self-releasing leash, an accompanying person, experienced surfers only, and a helmet recommended.

Pro Tip: Stand on the Prinzregentenstraße bridge before 09:00 on a weekday and the railing is yours; the three-deep crowd is an afternoon thing. From there it is 10 to 15 minutes on foot back to U4/U5 Lehel.

The Viktualienmarkt is a working produce market rather than a display of one, open Monday to Friday 08:00-20:00 and Saturday 08:00-15:00, closed on Sunday, with individual stallholders keeping their own hours inside those windows. Entry is free. Being 400 m from Marienplatz, it does get busier during Oktoberfest, but nowhere near as badly as the square itself, and the spillover is an afternoon and evening problem rather than a morning one.

The beer garden at the centre of the market is the reason to make the trip, and the reason is structural rather than sentimental. It rotates through all six of Munich's major breweries - Augustiner, Hacker-Pschorr, Löwenbräu, Hofbräu, Paulaner and Spaten - changing roughly every five to six weeks. The market stands on city-owned ground, so no single brewery is permitted to be favoured, and the rotation is how the city enforces that. Every other beer garden in Munich is tied to one brewery permanently. This is the only place where which beer you drink is a function of the calendar. During Oktoberfest, when each of those six breweries is locked into its own tent on the Theresienwiese, that neutrality is a genuinely different experience. Bavarian Brotzeit rules apply here too: you may bring your own cold food, but drinks must be bought on site.

Pro Tip: Get there before 10:00 on a weekday, when the market is doing its actual job, the stalls are fully stocked and the Wiesn crowd has not surfaced. Check which brewery is currently pouring before you sit down, since it changes every five to six weeks.

Marienplatz is the busiest square in Munich in an ordinary week, and during Oktoberfest it becomes the staging ground for the whole festival. This is where groups in Tracht meet before heading to the Theresienwiese and where they come back through afterwards. Going is still right; the hour just matters more here than anywhere else on this list.

The Rathaus-Glockenspiel in the tower of the Neues Rathaus chimes at 11:00 and 12:00 every day of the year, adds a 17:00 performance from March to October, and runs a separate evening show at 21:00 with the night watchman and the angel figures. It has 43 bells, is solar-powered, and works through six music cylinders that rotate across the year. The city does not publish an official duration, though performances commonly run somewhere around 12 to 15 minutes. It stays silent all day on Good Friday. Watching costs nothing.

The 17:00 chime is the one to skip during the Wiesn, since it lands squarely inside the Oktoberfest window with the square at its fullest. Take the 11:00 chime on a weekday morning instead, or the 21:00 evening show, which muenchen.de notes is quieter and less widely known.

Pro Tip: Be in the square by 10:50 for the 11:00 weekday chime; by 10:58 in late September the clear sightlines to the tower have gone. If an evening is all you have, take 21:00 over 17:00 every single time during the festival.

Put it plainly: the Hofbräuhaus am Platzl during Oktoberfest is the worst-timed visit in Munich. It is the default overflow venue for everyone turned away at a Wiesn tent door once capacity is reached, and that arrives on top of the tourist traffic the place carries every day of the year. Between 18:00 and midnight in late September the halls are a crush, service slows to a crawl, and much of the room is full of people who wanted to be somewhere else. A guide that recommends it for a September evening without saying so is not being useful.

It is still worth going at the right hour. The house at Platzl 9 opens daily 11:00-24:00, the kitchen runs to 22:00 with last orders at 23:30, and there is no admission charge. No Oktoberfest-specific hours have been published for 2026, so the standard schedule applies through the festival. Marienplatz and Isartor are both a five-minute walk away, which is precisely why the evening overflow finds it so easily. Go between 11:00 and 13:00 on a weekday. The Wiesn tents open in the morning and pull the crowd west across the city, which leaves the Hofbräuhaus in the one daily window where it behaves like a beer hall instead of a holding pen.

Pro Tip: Weekday, 11:00 to 13:00, and take a table rather than hovering by the door. Avoid 18:00 to midnight completely between 19 September and 4 October 2026, which is when the entire Wiesn overflow arrives at once.