Germany’s Munich airport, Franz-Joseph Strauss (IATA: MUC) was recently voted Europe’s second best Airport after Zurich in a “Skytrax” survey; and in my view quite rightly!

Munich is a fairly big airport with 2 terminals serving as Lufthansa’s second hub airport after Frankfurt. With airports however, size is not everything…

It’s not surprising then that Munich airport has two faces: The rather boring and older Terminal 1 which opened in 1992 is not the most exciting place. This terminal serves all non-Star Alliance flights and is divided into subsections A to E. Once you are through security, it’s a very limited experience in terms of what you can do there!

Terminal 2 on the other hand is the flagship terminal of the airport and hosts all Star Alliance flights. It offers a wide range of shops and restaurants even after passing the security section. So, you shouldn’t get bored anytime soon. My personal favourite is the Dallmayr shop: try the fresh “Bretzen” for example. Delicious!

Overall however, I’d recommend you spend as much time as you can in the airports “Zentralbereich”. This is the central area located between the two main terminals.

Here my top 5 things to do:

1. Enjoy an Oktoberfest atmosphere and super friendly staff at “Airbräu’s” outside beer garden between the terminals
2. Stock up for an authentic, Bavarian Weisswurst breakfast at the well equipped grocery store “Edeka”
3. Still haven’t sent the bundle of postcards and gifts you promised? No problem. You can send them off with the all important German post stamp at the “Deutsche Post” office next to “Edeka”.
4. The ever present Starbucks can sort out your early-flight coffee needs. You find it on the way to Terminal 2 from the outside area.
5. Oh and did you really, really, really like that waitress from the Airbräu (see first point)? Buy her some red roses from the beautiful flower shop “Airport Flower” next to the Starbucks

Airport Name	Munich “Franz Josef Strauss” Airport
Website	http://www.munich-airport.de
IATA Code	MUC
Design
Shopping
Toilets
Overall
	€ 87.90 (£74.30)
	€ 34.50 (£29.15)

[Picture from Flickr – some rights reserved.]