The Marstallmuseum: the coaches, the sleighs and the porcelain
A third of what the combination ticket buys is not in the palace at all. It is across the courtyard, in the south wing of the former royal stables, where the Marstallmuseum holds one of Europe’s great coach collections and the Museum of Nymphenburg Porcelain occupies the same building. One ticket, two museums, and a great many visitors walk out of the palace and go home without using either.
Described rather than photographed
There is no picture of a state coach on this site. The freely licensed pool this site draws its photographs from does not contain one: the German word Marstall names the royal stables as well as the museum inside them, so every candidate file turned out to be a photograph of the building. Rather than illustrate a coach collection with a picture of a roof, this page describes it in words and leaves the looking to you. Every photograph on this site is credited where it appears.
Why the coaches are the strongest argument for this palace
A visitor weighing Nymphenburg against the Munich Residenz is usually weighing state rooms against state rooms, which is a hard comparison to make from a hotel room. The coach collection is not a hard comparison. It is a category of thing the Residenz does not offer, held in quantity, and it is bundled into a ticket most people buy for the palace alone. If you can only take one palace, this is the concrete reason to take this one: Residenz or Nymphenburg.
The porcelain museum in the same building is the other half of the same argument. Nymphenburg is a name on porcelain before it is a name on a palace for a good many people, and the collection is on the ticket rather than beside it.
The half-hour rule bites hardest here
Last entry is thirty minutes before closing at each museum separately, and the Marstallmuseum is the one people leave until last, because it is across the courtyard and because they have already been walking for a while. Ivana had bought a guided fast-track and had the tickets in her hand: “we arrived to see the carriage museum at 3:30 sharp they close at 4:00 pm . And we had our tickets and all and they didn’t let us go inside . Even that the castle sold us the tickets !!! Very unfriendly people at the carriage place” — Germany, January 2025, on Munich Nymphenburg Palace & Carriage Museum Fast-Track Tour.
Do the Marstallmuseum first if you are arriving after the middle of the day, and the palace second. The palace is bigger and busier and will absorb whatever time is left; the coach museum will not wait for you.
Buying it on its own
The two museums together are sold as one single ticket for less than the palace costs, which makes them the cheapest way into anything ticketed on this estate. Everyone under eighteen is admitted free. If the coaches are the thing you came for and the state rooms are not, buy that single, walk into the park afterwards for nothing, and keep the difference. The figures are in the operator’s tariff table on the tickets page.
Two listings in the catalogue name the carriage museum in their own inclusions: the guided fast-track, which is the best-reviewed listing that goes inside, and the private skip-the-line tour, whose longer option adds the Museum of Man and Nature and private car transfers.
Palace + carriagesMunich Nymphenburg Palace & Carriage Museum Fast-Track Tour
Private, six languagesMunich: Nymphenburg Palace Skip-the-Line Private Guided Tour
Most booked, least lovedMunich: Nymphenburg Palace Entry Ticket
What is in the palace itself is on what you actually walk through, and the free two hundred hectares behind both buildings are on the park and its four pavilions.
Frequently asked questions
What is in the Marstallmuseum at Nymphenburg?
One of Europe’s great collections of state coaches and sleighs, in the south wing of the former royal stables, with the Museum of Nymphenburg Porcelain in the same building. Both are covered by the Nymphenburg combination ticket, and both can be bought on a single ticket of their own for less than the palace costs — see the tariff table.
Is the carriage museum included in the Nymphenburg ticket?
It is included in the combination ticket, together with the porcelain museum and, from April to 15 October, the four park palaces. It is not included in the palace-only single, which covers the palace and nothing else. The seasons and the arithmetic are on the tickets page.
What time does the carriage museum close?
It keeps the palace’s hours: 6 pm from April to 15 October and 4 pm from 16 October to March, with last entry thirty minutes before closing. That deadline is enforced at the door, as one reviewer of the fast-track tour found at half past three with tickets already bought. Full hours are on opening hours.