Following the expiry of laws controlling nude sunbathing last year, Munich, Germany's third largest city, has now introduced Urban Naked Zones where residents can freely strip to better enjoy the sun.

The six designated areas are located only minutes away from the city center but still offer privacy in secluded parkland. The Englischer Garten, one of Munich's public zones, has been a nudist destination since the 1960s with its Schönfeldweise ("beautiful meadows") area, considered as one of the must-visit places in the country.

"From the origins of the modern-day naturist movement to naked airlines and naked hotels, a lot has been written about the Germans' fondness for taking their clothes off in public. For much of the population of Munich, it's almost part of their DNA," a nudist travel site NaturistTravel.net writes. "Whenever the sun is out, you'll find Münchner of all ages, shapes and sizes catching some rays as nature intended. It's considered as much the perfect lunchtime escape from the stresses of a busy day for office workers as it's a place for friends and families to gather at weekends, and the atmosphere is always convivial and laidback."

"This being Germany, there's no embarrassment whatsoever about the fact that everybody is naked -- the park is named the English Garden because of the original style of the horticulture, not as an ironic way of poking fun at traditional British prudery," the website adds.

TheAtlanticCities.com is also praising the move.

"What Germany does have is a strong cultural tradition that seeks to escape artifice and the pressures of city life to return to something supposedly more natural. Seen in this light, stripping off in public is the voluntary removal of a heavy mask, a return to unvarnished honesty rather than some titter-worthy peek-a-boo. Places where this is allowed to happen are spaces of truce, where is a generally observed agreement that people will spare each other physical scrutiny and appraisal."

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