Nymphenburg Park (Schlosspark Nymphenburg) is a 200-hectare park situated behind Nymphenburg Palace. This is a great place and opportunity to spend 2-3 hours in a rural environs before or after your visit to the palace and museums.

The park was originally created in the late 17th century as an Italian Garden. It was given French and Baroque features throughout the 18th century before being much converted into a English style, nature woodland and countryside in the 19th century. As such, the park has elements of various time periods that make it a unique an interesting place to spend a few hours.

Firstly, you won't help but notice the Versailles like Canal that runs down the centre of the Nymphenburg Park. There are three Baroque style palaces and hunting lodges (Amalienburg, Badenburg and Pagodaburg) and a hermitage (Magdalenenklause) in ruinous appearance situated around the park in various locations. These can be visited together with a combo ticket (€4.50) as well as part of a combo ticket (€11.50) that includes the Castle, Marstall (Stagecoach) and Porzellen (Porcelain) museums as well.

Other aspects of the park that we really liked were the natural landscape with heavily wooded areas mixed with large stretches of open space, two lakes and several canal like streams. In this regard, the park very much felt like a natural countryside park.

We also liked seeing various statues such as (Pan and the Goat) and monuments like the 19th-century Apollo Temple on Lake Badenburg. There are walking trails which criss-cross the park, providing opportunity to venture around deeply into the park grounds to seek peaceful, quiet and beautiful grounds away from the heavily visited palace nearby were also very much enjoyed.

In the end, we liked Nymphenburg as much if not more than the English Garden in the middle of Munich. We would gladly return to spend more time here during future visits to the city and highly recommend visitors to the palace to allow at least another hour or two to explore the park grounds as well.