Lustgarten

The rectangular park faces the spectacular Berliner Dom and Altes Museum. It is across the street from the Berlin Palace, across the Spree River from the German Historical Museum. You can easily see the Fernsehturm TV tower from here.

The central location makes this a popular people space to show up and relax on the green grass or benches. You can enjoy music played by buskers, sit and read a good book, or simply people watch. It is close enough to the museums that you can connect with their free WiFi too.

A water fountain forms a focal point near the center of the garden.

Closer to the Altes Museum stands a giant solid granite bowl weighing in at 70 tonnes. A primary attraction in 19th century Berlin, it was transported up the River Spree in 1828 and inaugurated in 1834. Berliner’s often refer to it as the Berlin soup bowl.

History

Lustgarten had a lengthy and turbulent history.

It appeared in the 16th century as a vegetable garden for the adjacent City Palace. Friedrich Wilhelm converted it to a Dutch style royal garden featuring flower gardens, aviaries, fountains, and sculptures.

In the 18th century, Friedrich Wilhelm I had other ideas. He paved it over to create a military parade square. It wasn’t until 1790 that green lawns were planted again.

When the Altes Museum opened in 1830, the garden was further enhanced to present a pleasing landscape in front.

But that was not going to last. Military aspirations of the Nazis led to the park being paved again in 1934. With opposition to the regime now outlawed, Hitler addressed mass rallies of nearly one million people here. Immediately following WWII the park was nothing but a bombed wasteland.

Stuck in East Germany following the war, it wasn’t until after the reunification of Germany in the late 1990s that the park was at last restored to closely match its design prior to the WWII.

There are good bus connections to the Lustgarten with a stop right in front. The U-Bahn and S-Bahn are only a short walk.

Accommodations near Lustgarten:

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