Summer or winter at Linderhof: what the winter half-year costs you
Is the Venus Grotto open in winter? No.
Straight answer, because it is the question that brings most people to this page. The Venus Grotto is a summer opening. Its ticket and the palace-plus-grotto combination ticket are both sold in the summer half-year only. Between 16 October and 14 April there is no grotto tour to buy, at any price, on any day.
That matters more here than a closure usually would, because the grotto is the thing this place has that nothing else has. It reopened in April 2025 after a restoration run in six phases over roughly ten years, and more than 170,000 people went through it between that reopening and the end of 2025. If it is why you are coming, come in the summer half-year. The grotto page has the rest.
What is open, in each half of the year
| Summer, 15 Apr – 15 Oct | Winter, 16 Oct – 14 Apr | |
|---|---|---|
| Palace (guided tour) | 9:00–18:00 | 10:00–16:30 |
| Ticket sales | 8:30–17:30 | 9:30–16:00 |
| Venus Grotto | 9:00–18:00 | Closed |
| Moroccan House | 9:00–18:00 | Closed |
| Hunding’s Hut | 11:00–18:00 | Closed |
| Hermitage of Gurnemanz | 11:00–18:00 | Closed |
| Royal Lodge exhibition | 11:00–18:00 | Sundays and public holidays 12:00–16:30; daily 12:00–16:30 in Bavarian school holidays |
| Fountains | April to October, every half hour 9:00–18:00 | Not playing |
| Combination ticket, palace and grotto | Sold | Not sold |
| Moorish Kiosk | Under renovation and scaffolded — not visible in either season | |
The one winter exception, and it is a real one
The Royal Lodge exhibition is the only park building that opens at all in the winter half-year, and it does not open every day. Sundays and public holidays, 12:00 to 16:30 — and daily on the same hours during Bavarian school holidays, which is the clause that decides most February trips. Check the Bavarian holiday dates for the year you are travelling before you build a day around it.
What winter is actually like here
I take people up in February most years, and I would rather tell you what that is than sell it to you. The drive or the bus in along the Graswangtal is the best it looks in any season. There is nobody in the car park. Tours run every few minutes into a building with forty places on each of them, so you walk on rather than queue. The terraces are under snow and the fountain basins are dry and covered, and the formal garden — which is the reason a lot of people come — is a shape under white rather than a garden.
So the honest trade is this. Winter gives you the palace at its quietest and the valley at its best, for a shorter day and about half the site. Summer gives you the whole site and the water, with the crowd that comes with it. Neither is the right answer; they are different visits and the mistake is arriving in one expecting the other.
What works
- Winter: you walk straight onto a tour, most days
- Winter: the Graswangtal is at its best under snow
- Winter: the palace itself is open every day but five
- Summer: the grotto, which is the thing worth coming for
- Summer: the fountains, the parterres and every park building
- Summer: a longer day at both ends
Worth knowing
- Winter: no grotto, at any price, on any day
- Winter: no fountains, and the formal garden is under snow
- Winter: the park buildings are shut but for the Royal Lodge
- Winter: last tickets at four, palace shut at half past
- Summer: forty people on your tour and a full car park
- Either: the Moorish Kiosk cannot be seen at all, and has no reopening date
If you are coming in the winter half-year and the grotto is the point, do not come. Move the trip. It is a fifteen-minute tour in a place you cannot see any other way, and there is no substitute for it on site — it is the one closure that cannot be worked around.
Booking a day out of Munich, in either season
The palace sells its own ticket at its own window for about eleven euros, all year. What the platforms sell is the journey, and the cheapest listing that will actually put you in front of the building is about seventy-six euros. That difference is the drive, not better access — nobody is selling a faster way into a 25-minute tour that leaves every five minutes. Tickets has the whole of it.
Read next
- Hours, seasons and the closed days.
- The Venus Grotto — the summer-only half of this site.
- The park buildings, and which ones ever open in winter.
- Is it worth it? — an honest answer, in both seasons.
Frequently asked questions
Is the Venus Grotto open in winter?
No. The grotto is a summer opening, 15 April to 15 October. Its ticket and the palace-plus-grotto combination ticket are not sold in the winter half-year at all.
Is Linderhof worth visiting in winter?
For the palace and the valley, yes — it is the quietest the place gets and you walk straight onto a tour. For the grotto, the fountains, the formal garden and the park buildings, no: those are all summer.
Do the fountains at Linderhof run all year?
No. They play April to October, every half hour between 9:00 and 18:00, and the administration notes that capacity may be reduced by water shortage — so treat the half-hour as the schedule rather than a guarantee.