Schönfeldwiese: The People's Meadow
Why is it significant?
Walk out of the trees onto the open grass and let your eyes travel: a wide green meadow, scattered with picnic blankets, frisbees and dogs, and on a little hill ahead, a round white temple. Over to the side, the Eisbach slides by between its banks.
Key Facts
| Place | Schönfeldwiese: The People's Meadow |
|---|---|
| Address | Englischer Garten, 80539 München, Germany |
| Geo Coordinates | 48.14750, 11.58650 |
| Part of Walk | River and Meadow: Munich's Isar, the Angel of Peace & the English Garden |
| Generated | Generated |
Walk out of the trees onto the open grass and let your eyes travel: a wide green meadow, scattered with picnic blankets, frisbees and dogs, and on a little hill ahead, a round white temple. Over to the side, the Eisbach slides by between its banks. And yes... some of the sunbathers here are wearing nothing at all.
This is the Schönfeldwiese, and it is the heart of the oldest part of the English Garden. The park's story begins in 1789, when the ruler of Bavaria, Elector Karl Theodor, agreed to turn a stretch of hunting ground along the Isar into a garden. The idea came from an American soldier and scientist in his service, Benjamin Thompson, whom you will meet properly in a few minutes.
The man who gave it shape was the landscape architect Friedrich Ludwig von Sckell. Instead of the straight avenues and clipped hedges of a French palace garden, he created the illusion of wild nature: meadows like this one, groves, winding streams, distant views. And radically for the time, it was a garden for everyone, not just the court. Today the English Garden is larger than New York's Central Park.
As for the nude sunbathers: Munich made peace with them long ago. Parts of this meadow are officially set aside for sunbathing without clothes, and generations of tourists have walked into the scene, stopped, and suddenly become very interested in the trees. Locals barely notice. It is part of a very Bavarian idea of freedom: live and let live, as long as you are not bothering anyone.
Look around and count the uses of one meadow: football, yoga, reading, napping, slacklining, a birthday party, a lone trumpet player practising scales. Two centuries ago, this was considered a radical social experiment. Now cross the meadow and climb the little hill to the round temple at the top.