Alpine Museum, Mountain heritage museum on Prater Island, Munich, Germany
The Alpine Museum is a museum in Munich that displays mountain equipment, artworks, and materials related to Alpine tradition in a gray rococo castle with a copper-topped turret. The building sits on Prater Island and is complemented by an extensive Alpine library holding scholarly works and collections.
The museum was founded in 1911 by the German and Austrian Alpine clubs as an institution for preserving mountain heritage. It suffered heavy damage during the Second World War but was extensively restored and reopened to the public in 1996.
The museum holds the Schlagintweit collection of around 200 watercolors, drawings, and lithographs showing expeditions through India and Central Asia. These artworks offer insight into how 19th-century explorers saw and documented distant lands.
The museum has a cafe called Isarlust serving meals and drinks, as well as outdoor seating for warmer months. Visitors should allow time to browse the extensive Alpine library, which holds one of the largest collections on mountain topics in Europe.
The museum's garden displays alpine plants with labeled trees and rocks alongside geological samples showing major rock formations of the Alps. This living exhibit lets visitors explore the natural landscape that the indoor collections document.
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