Walking Munich's Olympiapark with the free audio guide

The free audio guide in your ear

Olympiapark Audioguide runs inside the Hearonymus app. There is no booking and no cap on numbers. Each person in your party needs a phone and headphones of their own, so one phone shared between two people does not work here.

Download it before you set out, because that is the only thing you have to arrange. The chapters sit on a GPS map of the park, so you can take them in whatever order your legs and the weather suggest. Press play on the first one while you are still standing on the curving paths under the translucent acrylic tent roof, with the grey cable net overhead.

The audio spreads across the whole park. Fit the paid stops in between chapters.

The lakeside chapters and the Walk of Stars

The Munich Olympic Walk of Stars runs 800 metres along the Olympic lake. More than 170 handprints and signatures have been pressed into its 90 by 90 centimetre concrete slabs since 2003, and the guide's lakeside chapters run right past them. The promenade is free and open, with no restriction on where you stand or how long you take.

Walk it in one direction and let the chapters play as you go. It is the easiest stretch of the day with children: they can hunt handprints while the audio plays for the adults.

The memorial to the 1972 attack

Erinnerungsort Olympia-Attentat. München 1972 is a dark angular concrete wedge cut into a green grass slope, with one long horizontal slit window. A film plays on the inner wall, beside the victims' names and portraits. The installation runs daily 08:00 to 22:00, in German with English subtitles, and the site itself never closes. Entry is free.

This is the sombre stop, and it changes the tone of the rest of the park. Brief children before you go in. Take your headphones out at the door.

The viewing niche is tight, so a large party will take it in turns. The Jewish Museum runs free 90-minute guided walks here, booked by phone.

Olympiaberg for the panorama

Olympiaberg is a 56-metre hill built from the bombed city's rubble, crossed by worn dirt switchbacks. From the slope you look across the tent-roof stadium to the Alps on the horizon. It is still the best free panorama in north Munich, and no one collects a ticket at the bottom.

People sit on the grass for the sunset. The paths are unlit and uneven. Carry a torch if you stay up there for it, and wear shoes with some grip after rain.

The Skylift while the Olympiaturm is shut

Skylift Olympiapark lifts four glass gondolas up a slim open steel mast, 70 metres beside the Olympic tent roof, and it stands in as the viewpoint while the Olympiaturm is closed. The cabins are enclosed and barrier-free, and the panorama is 360 degrees. Adults pay €13, concessions €11 and children €8.

The Rooftop Experience adds €16 and puts you standing on the open roof deck of a cabin. It is capped at six people per ride, which splits a bigger group across several ascents.

The lift closes without warning in wind or bad weather. Ride it in your first clear hour and keep the rest of the day flexible around it. If the wind has already shut it when you arrive, buy nothing and come back later.

Inside the Olympia-Schwimmhalle

Olympia-Schwimmhalle is the 1972 venue you can get inside and swim in while the stadium is shut. The original 50-metre competition pool lies under the translucent cable-net acrylic roof, with a 10-metre diving tower at one end and period orange and ochre tiling around it. Five pools and a full sauna world open daily 07:00 to 23:00.

Entry is €7 for adults and €5 concession, through a turnstile, with lockers inside. Lane space varies by the hour, since school and club groups use the hall constantly. Carry a towel and swimwear with you; your phone spends this stop in a locker.

Ice at SAP Garden

SAP Garden is the park's newest building and now its ice home, a low arena sunk into the parkland behind a slatted pale-timber and glass facade. Public sessions run on all three rinks for most of the year, and an evening ice disco runs under the arena lighting. Skating is €9.50 for adults, with skate hire at €8.

Sessions are sold as time slots and walk-up space is not guaranteed. Book the slot online before you leave for the park. Pick an evening slot if you want the disco.

Bouldering at Munich Action Park

Munich Action Park fills 2,000 square metres inside the shell of the old Olympic ice rink. Tall coloured bouldering walls rise over mats, with Ninja Warrior rigs and parkour blocks behind them and a children's climbing area at the side. The hall sits at €€.

You buy a three-hour slot on site and hire shoes at the desk. On weekdays it opens from 15:00. Plan it as an afternoon stop.

The building is the former Olympia-Eissportzentrum. Skating moved to SAP Garden when the climbing moved in.

Climbing the SAYAQ Adventure Tower

SAYAQ Adventure Tower stacks square steel frames 22 metres up beside the closed stadium, with 38 harnessed stations on three levels and a 180 square metre platform on top facing the stadium's tent roof. The 128 steps to that platform need no harness. Take the steps if the view is all you want; the harnessed stations are a separate climb. The tower sits at €€.

It runs March to November. The same operator rents boats, kayaks and SUPs on the lake.

Lunch at Restaurant Olympiasee

Restaurant Olympiasee is a glass pavilion at the foot of the Olympic tower, with a wide lakeside terrace, pale wood furniture and an open show kitchen working live cooking stations. Mains run €12 to €20. It is the only proper sit-down option in the middle of the park now that the revolving Restaurant 181 is closed with the tower.

Hours stretch in summer and shrink out of season. Check them before you build a lunch stop around the place, and phone ahead on event days. Ask for the terrace in summer.

Tickets at the door and what to book ahead

The audio guide needs no reserving, and the free ground takes no ticket: the hill, the promenade and the memorial are open walk-ups at any hour you turn up. The Skylift sells at the door, and the bouldering slot is bought on site.

Two things are worth settling before you go. The ice slot goes online. The guided memorial walk goes by telephone. Coach tours of the city with audio commentary run seven days a week and book up steadily, so reserve a day ahead if you want a fixed departure.

Best time to go

Take the audio chapters early and keep the Skylift for the clearest hour of the day, because the lift is the one stop the weather can cancel outright. The pool holds the widest daily window of anything in the park, from early morning to late evening. Bouldering is a weekday afternoon option. The adventure tower is a warm-season stop and the rinks carry most of the year.

Finish on Olympiaberg. The sunset from the slope is the one piece of timing worth planning the rest of the day around.

Is it worth it

The audio guide suits a visitor who wants the 1972 story told in the places it happened, and it asks for nothing beyond a charged phone and headphones. The paid stops are each a separate decision. The free panorama from the hill is the one view to make room for.

Before you go

The memorial site never closes and the audio guide needs no booking, while the ice slot goes online and the guided memorial walk goes by phone. Treat the Skylift and the adventure tower as weather and season calls. See the Munich guide and the Munich hotel search.