Handpicked experience · Munich
Munich, Germany
The route through the tanks is a journey downstream: it begins with fish from the Isar running through the city outside, follows the Danube to the Black Sea, and only then reaches the ocean.
A layout that teaches a geography lesson without announcing it
The first species on show are ones living minutes from the entrance
A walk-through passage where the animals pass overhead
Displays set low enough for children to use unaided
Indoor and weatherproof, in a city that needs that
Inside a park worth spending the other half of the day in
Two hours at SEA LIFE Munich, the aquarium in the Olympiapark, which opened in 2006 and holds something over four thousand five hundred creatures across thirty-nine tanks. It is an indoor, weatherproof, pushchair-friendly two hours, which in a city with Munich's climate is a more useful proposition than it sounds.
Munich is about as far from the sea as a German city gets, and the aquarium deals with that by not pretending otherwise. The route through it is a journey downstream, and it begins with the Isar — the river running through the city a short distance away — with tanks of the freshwater fish that actually live in it.
From there it follows the water: the Isar into the Danube, the Danube east across the continent and out into the Black Sea, and only then to the Mediterranean and finally the tropics. By the time you reach the sharks you have crossed most of a continent, and the sequence has quietly taught a piece of geography that a room full of unrelated tanks never would.
For children this is the part that lands. The first fish they see are ones they could in principle have seen from a bridge that morning, which makes the last ones feel a great deal further away.
The underwater tunnel is the set piece, and it works for the obvious reason: rays and sharks pass over your head rather than in front of you, and small visitors stop talking for a moment. It is short, so nobody gets bored, and the tanks that follow are arranged at a height children can actually use.
Comfortably the whole route with time to stop, which is the right length. Feeding demonstrations and talks run through the day at posted times and are worth planning around, since they are where the staff explain what you are looking at.
The Olympiapark is a destination in its own right, so the aquarium works well as the indoor half of a day that also uses the park outside. Lighting inside is deliberately low, which is hard on photographs and easy on the eyes. Pushchairs go through the whole route. It is busiest on wet weekend afternoons for exactly the reason you would expect, and quietest early on weekdays.
Open it to pick a date and work out the price.
What the fare covers, and what to budget for separately.
The practical detail, and the answers people actually ask for.
About two hours, which covers the full route with time to stop along the way.
In the Olympiapark, which makes it easy to combine with the park itself.
It has been open since the middle of the two thousands, so the displays are of a modern generation rather than a converted older building.
As a journey downstream, beginning with the river that runs through the city and ending in tropical water.
Freshwater species from the local river, the ones that live a short distance from the door.
Thirty-nine, holding something over four thousand five hundred creatures between them.
A short passage beneath a large tank, so rays and sharks pass overhead rather than in front of you.
Yes. Pushchairs go through the whole route and the tanks are set at heights children can use.