Germany Guide
Munich
Deutsches Museum
Address: Museumsinsel
Opening time: daily 9am–5pm
Price: €8.50
Website: www.deutsches-museum.de
On a narrow island in the middle of the River Isar stands the Deutsches Museum, Munich's sprawling museum of science and technology, which houses one of the world's largest collections of its kind, constantly updated and with plenty of interactive exhibits. It honours not just the achievements of science, but the scientists themselves: the Ehrensaal on the first floor contains busts of such familiar names as Karl Benz, Rudolf Diesel and Albert Einstein.
The core of the museum's collection was formed by the mathematical and physical instruments of the Bavarian Academy of Sciences. Younger visitors in particular will enjoy the astronomy section with its associated planetarium, observatory and solar telescope, with which you can – in complete safety – view real-time images of sunspots. The section on chemistry includes reconstructions of a series of historical laboratories, while the medical displays are a hypochondriac's nightmare with sections on AIDS, heart disease and cancer, though the section on plants with medicinal uses may provide the antidote. There are sections on mathematics, mass, time and physics, and the beauty of some of the older scientific instruments ensures it's not just one for the nerds. The museum has an outstation, the Verkehrszentrum, above the Theresienwiese at Theresienhöhe 14a (same hours; €5; U-Bahn #4 or #5 to Schwannthalerhöhe), which accommodates a sizeable collection of historic vehicles and another at Oberschleissheim that houses its aircraft collection.