Alter Peter

St. Peter — affectionately known as 'Alter Peter' — is Munich's oldest parish church, anchoring the Altstadt skyline above Marienplatz since the 12th century. Its nave layers Gothic structural bones beneath extravagant Baroque furnishings added across the 17th and 18th centuries; bomb damage in 1944 gutted the interior and restoration work stretched well into the 1950s. The church's strangest treasure is the glass shrine of Saint Munditus, a skeletal catacomb saint dressed in full jeweled regalia — a Roman catacomb relic that arrived in Munich in the 17th century and remains one of Bavaria's most startling religious objects. The red-and-white striped tower carries eight clock faces pointing in different directions, a quirk that gave rise to the Munich joke that the city wanted to show as little of the time as possible to the people of Schwabing. Climbing 306 steps to the open observation platform rewards visitors with an unobstructed view over the Frauenkirche, the Viktualienmarkt, and — on clear days — the entire Alpine chain.

Munich's oldest parish church (Romanesque, later reworked Gothic + Baroque); 91 m tower with viewing platform right by Marienplatz.