Hirschgarten, Munich

Hirschgarten is a public park in Munich’s Nymphenburg district, covering 40 hectares and including a restaurant with a beer garden that seats about 8,000 people. Its history began as a hunting ground created in 1780 for Bavarian Elector Charles Theodore, before the grounds were opened to the public. The long, low Jägerhaus dates from 1791 and now houses the park restaurant.

A two-hectare enclosure preserves a very tangible link with that earlier purpose: fallow deer and mouflon live there today. Beyond the historic story, the park offers mature trees, lawns, play areas, barbecue spaces and sloping ground used for sledding. The combination is unusual: a former court hunting landscape remains a working public recreation space, with living deer close to the busy beer garden.