Bavaria, Germany — Towns & Travel Guide

What is Bavaria known for?

Bavaria is Germany's south-eastern corner and its largest state by land. Munich anchors it. The capital fills a plateau south of the Danube, and beyond that plateau the Bavarian Alps rise toward the Zugspitze, the highest point in Germany.

North of the river the land opens into Franconia, threaded by the Main and dotted with old towns like Nuremberg and Würzburg. Oktoberfest, beer gardens, and King Ludwig's castle at Neuschwanstein carry the region's name far past the Alps.

Where is Bavaria?

Bavaria fills the south-east of Germany, the largest of the country's states by land area. The Danube cuts the state roughly in two. It runs west to east across the middle, past Regensburg at its northernmost bend and on toward Passau, where three rivers meet at the Austrian border.

Munich sits on the rolling plateau south of the river, and south of the capital again the ground climbs to the Bavarian Alps along the frontier with Austria. There the Zugspitze reaches 2,962 metres, the highest point in all of Germany. North of the Danube the land is different.

Franconia opens out, drained by the Main and the Regnitz and rimmed by low wooded ranges. Along the eastern edge, against the Czech border, the Bavarian Forest runs in a long dark ridge of hills. Würzburg and Nuremberg stand in the north.

Augsburg lies to the west in the old Swabian country. Beyond the state's own edges sit its neighbours: Baden-Württemberg to the west, Hesse and Thuringia to the north-west and north, Saxony to the north-east, and Austria and the Czech Republic across the mountains. Two of those borders are foreign.

Bavaria is the one German state that fronts two other countries at once.

What is Bavaria like?

Bavaria guards its own identity harder than any other German state, and calls itself the Free State, the Freistaat, to say so. Catholic tradition runs through it. Baroque churches and roadside shrines fill the countryside, and the church calendar still shapes the year in the villages of Old Bavaria.

Yet the state is not one culture but three stitched together. Old Bavaria around Munich, Franconia in the north around Nuremberg and Würzburg, and Swabia in the west around Augsburg each keep their own dialect, cooking, and pride, and a Franconian will correct you if you call the north Bavarian in the narrow sense. Beer is the common thread.

Munich brews the beer that fills the tents of Oktoberfest each autumn, the largest folk festival on earth, and beer gardens under chestnut trees are a fixture from the capital to the smallest market town. The Alpine south adds its own picture. Painted house fronts, dirndl and Lederhosen worn without irony, and King Ludwig's castle at Neuschwanstein rising over the foothills.

German is the official language, spoken in dialects that shift sharply from valley to valley. It is a proud culture, and it wears that pride openly.

What is the history of Bavaria?

Bavaria carries a long history. The stem duchy of the Bavarians took shape in the 6th century, on land the Romans had once held, and the name traces to the Baiovarii who settled it. The Wittelsbach family ruled from the Middle Ages onward, and in 1806, under Napoleon's remaking of the map, the duchy was raised to the Kingdom of Bavaria under Maximilian I. That kingdom joined the German Empire in 1871 while keeping its own crown.

The monarchy fell in the revolution of 1918, and a new constitution in 1919 made Bavaria the Free State it still calls itself, the Freistaat Bayern.

What is the climate of Bavaria?

Bavaria runs to a continental climate, colder in winter and warmer in summer than much of western Germany. Altitude decides a lot of it. The Alps and the higher plateaus around Munich hold hard frost and deep snow for months, while the sheltered Lower Main valley in the north-west stays the mildest corner of the state and ripens Franconian vineyards.

A dry Alpine wind, the Föhn, can clear the Munich sky and pull the mountains startlingly close. Rain falls heaviest against the southern peaks.

How do you get to Bavaria?

Most visitors fly into Munich, whose airport is the busiest in the state and the main gateway for the south. Trains do the rest. Fast rail links Munich and Nuremberg to the rest of Germany and south across the Alps to Austria, and the Danube corridor carries the line east through Regensburg toward Passau and Vienna.

Drivers reach Bavaria on the autobahn network that fans out from Munich. From the Alpine passes it is a short run over the border from Austria or the Czech Republic.