Historic, stylish, dramatic and gay-friendly: what’s not to love about Munich? Colin Fraser reports from the Bavarian gem.

“Hitler probably sat right there,” says Dietmar, pointing vaguely at tables near the window of his first-floor restaurant. “Nazi party headquarters were a couple of blocks away, and we know he used to eat here quite regularly in the 1920s.” My mind flooded with the irony that one of history’s greatest homophobes once dined above what is now Munich’s (if not Europe’s) best gay sauna, the Deutsche Eiche. “Not that we’re proud of it,” he says, “it’s just the way it is.”

Dietmar Holzapfel is, appropriately for Bavaria, a cheerful bear of a man. He bought the fading Eiche with his father and husband Josef in the mid 1990s. Their aim was to create the best possible facility for gay tourists: several stories of superior accommodation, dining and bathing. The sauna’s steam-apartment alone (it’s far too big to be called a room) is a work of art that features regular, somewhat disconcerting, tropical downpours. In a secluded corner lurks a twinkling grotto seemingly imported from Krypton. Theirs is not a regular sauna.

It would be easy to spend several friendly days in Munich and never leave the Eiche. Many don’t. Yet they miss out on a vibrant city with a bit of gay loitering on nearly every corner. A short walk through the old town leads to Glockenbach, a lively neighbourhood of cafés, bars and restaurants that has become the gay centre. Three outdoor festivals are held here every year. During Oktoberfest the gay tent (yes, there is one) alone hosts over 5,000 determined drinkers. The collective hangover is dealt with in any of twenty busy bars and clubs that, for a city of two million (only a smidgen more than Brisbane) is a supply of venues that leaves Brisvegas wanting.

But it’s not all beer and sauerkraut. Blinking under a breathless blue sky we bundled into Dietmar’s VW Golf for an impromptu tour of the city sights. In deference to Berlin, Munich is Germany’s second gay capital. After all, Bavaria was the province of mad King Ludwig II whose flamboyant nature and fondness for Wagnerian opera culminated in the insanely baroque castle of Neuwanschtein. It puts the ‘g’ in gay, and his legacy is still felt today.

Whistling past a throng of tourists gawping at the high-camp display of the city’s famous glockenspiel in Marienplatz, Dietmar points out gayness left and right: a lesbian café here, a homo-monument there, a rights lobby, a drop-in centre... The bust of Leo von Kelnze (architecture’s neo-classical wünderkind) that he and Josef bequeathed the city, the spot where a Condom Pope outraged Rome during the annual Pride march.

Leisure, history, art, even sport has a gay angle. An island in the strident river Isar has become a gay beach and, this being Germany, a gay nudist beach. Further along a dozen urgent surfers skilfully negotiate tumbling waters in a narrow channel. Would these lithe men be soothing aching muscles at the DE afterwards? Dietmar smiled wistfully. “Maybe... ”

The writer dined and relaxed as a guest of the Deutsche Eiche.