
English Garden
Sprawling city park with a river standing wave famous for urban surfing, plus temples and beer gardens.
Location
About this audio guide
This guide to Munich's English Garden follows a narrow, ice-cold channel of the river Isar where a standing wave formed by accident in the 1970s turned into an underground obsession. It traces a teenager named Quirin Rohleder, chased off with a confiscated board in the late 1980s, and the decades of surfers who kept riding despite bans and sirens. You'll hear how the city wrestled with what to do about the danger. Stand at the rail near the bridge to watch riders peel off the wave one after another.
This audio guide was created using AI.
Similar places
Eisbachwelle
Man-made standing wave on a park stream, ridden year-round by river surfers since the nineteen seventies.
Monopteros im Englischen Garten
Ten-columned Greek-style round temple atop a man-made hill, prized as a scenic overlook and 1960s counterculture gathering spot.
Flaucher
Gravel-banked river park along the Isar, with a historic beer garden and a legal riverside naturist stretch.
Kleinhesseloher See
Island-studded lake in a landscaped garden, favored for summer boating and, when frozen, winter skating.
Biergarten am Chinesischen Turm
Pagoda-topped beer garden under chestnut trees, site of a dawn dance once banned for indecency.
SEEHAUS im Englischen Garten
Lakeside beer garden and restaurant beneath old chestnut trees, with terrace seating right on the water.