Altomünster: Museums, Monastery Herb Garden and Trails

Altomünster offers several ways to plan a stay: museums covering topics from art to brewing history, the monastery herb garden, and walking and hiking routes of varying lengths and difficulty levels. This lets you balance cultural attractions and outdoor activities according to your interests.

Museums and History

The Gaudnek Museum displays a diverse collection of paintings, drawings, watercolours, collages, assemblages, objects, sculptures, scrigraphs and posters. The museum also includes the “Theater im Koffer” and an archive of photographs and documents. The different areas of the collection offer art enthusiasts several themes to explore during a visit.

The Altomünster Museum focuses on the history of the Order of the Birgittines in Europe and its founder, Saint Bridget of Sweden. These subjects are at the heart of the permanent exhibition. A tour of the upper floor also provides information about Altomünster’s heyday in the Baroque period. The history of the order and the history of the town thus offer two distinct cultural perspectives.

The brewery museum in Altomünster documents beer production in times gone by. Museum guide Sigi Surek explains the history of brewing, from the raw ingredients and brewing process to beer in the bottle. If you are planning a guided tour, contact the brewery inn to arrange it. This lets you sort out the details before your visit.

Monastery Herb Garden

The monastery herb garden is located between the rectory at Birgittenhof 9 and the Birgitten Museum. Around 120 different medicinal and culinary plants grow in an area of approximately 350 m² and can be seen throughout the gardening year. The herbs, shrubs and trees are clearly labelled with detailed information. The garden therefore combines a compact area with a wide variety of plants and information.

Walks and Hikes

The walk “Art and Culture around Klosterberg” passes artistic, cultural and architectural sights. The route is about 1 km long, rated easy and takes approximately half an hour. It is a short way to explore the sights around Klosterberg on foot.

A longer hike is the meditative InSichGehen trail. It leads from Petersberg to Altomünster via fourteen stations, is 10 km long and climbs 150 metres. It is rated easy. There is storm damage at some stations, but the trail is also described as fully accessible. Check the current trail conditions before setting out.

The Hochweg is also rated as an easy hike. Along its 4.5 km route, it offers views of Altomünster across fields. The Landschaftsweg, by contrast, is a moderately difficult circular trail: it is 7 km long and offers scenic views. The stated distances and difficulty levels make it easier to compare the two hikes without assuming they take the same amount of time.

Near the destination, the St.-Alto-Weg leads to the Alto spring in the Alto forest. This moderately difficult hike is 6.5 km long and takes about 2.5 hours. Its length, difficulty level and approximate duration provide a concrete guide for planning your time.

Altomünster on the 7-Klöster-Weg

Cyclists will also find a connection to the town: in Markt Altomünster, the 7-Klöster-Weg passes the monastery church of St. Alto and St. Birgitta. Altomünster was home to a Birgitten monastery for centuries. The route and the museum exhibition therefore touch on different aspects of the history of the Order of the Birgittines—one along the way, the other focusing on the order’s history and its founder.

When choosing between the routes, the differences specifically provided can help: the roughly half-hour walk around Klosterberg, easy hikes of 4.5 or 10 km, and a moderately difficult 7 km circular trail. If you also want to include a route nearby, the St.-Alto-Weg offers another stated distance and approximate duration.

Discover more destinations: Tandern, Sulzemoos, Röhrmoos, Hebertshausen, Haimhausen, Dachau, Markt Indersdorf, Weißling.

Back to the higher-level travel overview: Dachau.