Frauenkirche

Munich's Frauenkirche is a late-Gothic brick cathedral built with unusual speed between 1468 and 1488 by city architect Jörg von Halsbach; the congregation consecrated it before the towers were even finished. The twin onion domes, added in 1525, became so central to Munich's identity that a city ordinance still bans any building within the old town ring from exceeding their height. Just inside the entrance, a dark footprint pressed into the marble floor is known as the Teufelstritt — the Devil's Footstep — tied to a legend in which the devil, tricked by the architect, believed the finished church had no windows because they were invisible from that single vantage point. Heavily damaged in the 1944–45 bombing raids, the towers were not restored until 1957. The north tower, reachable by elevator and stairs, offers sweeping views across the old town roofscape toward the Alps on clear days.

Munich's signature landmark: late-Gothic brick cathedral with two copper-domed Welsche Hauben (99 m and 100 m).