Lichtentaler Allee

The Lichtentaler Allee is Baden-Baden’s grand central avenue and a unique monument of garden design. The name covers both the 2.3-kilometre street and the English-style landscape park that surrounds it. From Goetheplatz in the town centre to Klosterplatz in Lichtental, the avenue traces the course of the Oos. Its present shape dates largely from the 19th century, when Baden-Baden was establishing itself as an international spa town and the avenue became a fashionable promenade. Many celebrated figures walked here in those years, and monuments in the park still recall them today. The planting is remarkably varied, because Baden-Baden’s particular climate lets exotic species flourish alongside native ones. The park has no hard edges either — it merges into the gardens of the surrounding luxury villas and hotels, which adds to its sense of expanse.

Route and Character

From Goetheplatz in the town centre the avenue runs south, then south-east, to Klosterplatz in Lichtental. Two cross streets, Fremersbergstraße and Gunzenbachstraße, divide it into three sections.

The first section, between Goetheplatz and Fremersbergstraße, doubles as Baden-Baden’s museum mile. Past the theatre come the Kulturhaus LA8 with its Museum of 19th-Century Art and Technology, the Staatliche Kunsthalle, the Museum Frieder Burda and the Stadtmuseum (city museum). On the eastern bank of the Oos, Augustaplatz borders the park. The Kongresshaus and Germany’s most expensive grand hotel, Brenners Park-Hotel and Spa, stand on that side too. Two features catch the eye in this section: the Sintersteinbrunnen and the huge weeping beech level with the Kulturhaus LA8. The Empress Augusta Memorial and the Turgenev Memorial stand here as well. Scattered oaks and, above all, tulip trees line the street. In spring the crocuses come out, and nowhere along the avenue are they more lavish than here.

Across Fremersbergstraße lies the middle section. The tennis courts here belong to Tennisclub Rot-Weiß, one of the oldest tennis clubs in Germany. The Josefinenbrücke leads across to the formally laid-out Gönneranlage (park), used today as a rose garden and built around the monumental Josefinenbrunnen at its centre. To its south-east, the Kurpark-Residenz Bellevue sits in a spacious park of its own. The Bellevue was once a luxury hotel and now houses a retirement residence. The Villa Schriever follows shortly before Gunzenbachstraße, with a large rose sculpture in its garden. Oaks line the street throughout this section.

Past Gunzenbachstraße the Klosterwiese opens up, and with it the third section. The Hirtenhäuschen stands right at its start. Here, in 1861, King Wilhelm of Prussia came through an assassination attempt largely unharmed. A few steps on lie the Dahlia Garden and the Bénazet Pavilion. Three busts commemorate Clara Schumann, Johannes Brahms and Robert Stolz. Across the Oos you look onto the park front of Palais Biron, the former Hotel Bären and a number of houses in the Swiss chalet style. Silver lindens line the street in this section, which is open to one-way traffic. The Lichtentaler Allee ends at Klosterplatz in front of Kloster Lichtenthal (Lichtenthal Abbey).

History

Legend has it that the Baden chamberlain Moritz von Lassolaye laid out the Lichtentaler Allee in 1655 as a link between the town of Baden-Baden and Kloster Lichtenthal (Lichtenthal Abbey), planting it with oaks.^[1] The story is doubted.^[1] What is certain is that the bailiff Johann Weiss, in his 1691 memorandum on the development of Baden-Baden, proposed an oak avenue between Baden-Baden and Lichtental.^[2] The avenue takes its name from the abbey it leads to. At the start of the 19th century, Grand Duke Karl Friedrich set about turning Baden-Baden into a resort worthy of aristocratic and other well-to-do guests. The Kaiserallee was laid out as an English landscape park, only for the still-untamed Oos to flood and destroy it in 1825. The systematic transformation of the western Oos meadows into a spacious park began only once the river’s course had been regulated. Around the newly built Conversationshaus — today’s Kurhaus (spa house) — the park grew into a fashionable promenade. The casino lessees of the day were obliged to fund a suitable programme of entertainment for the town’s guests out of their gambling revenues, and they invested in the spa town. The Lichtentaler Allee benefited too: from around 1850 to 1870, at the instigation of the lessees Jacques and Edouard Bénazet, it was likewise remodelled in the English style.^[3]

The more recent history of the Lichtentaler Allee is largely the history of preserving it as a garden monument. In 1956 the parks department compiled a tree atlas recording every important specimen, and 125 trees were granted the status of a natural monument. In 1965 numerous three-hundred-year-old oaks along the museum mile had to be replaced with tulip trees: gas for the street lamps had escaped from a faulty pipe, seeped into the ground and suffocated them.^[4] From the late 1980s the parks department catalogued every tree in the Lichtentaler Allee and the Kaiserallee, and funding from the baths and spa administration made a park maintenance plan possible.^[5] On 26 December 1999 Cyclone Lothar caused extensive damage across the town, the Lichtentaler Allee included. A donation drive in spring 2000 succeeded, and 200 new trees were planted.^[6]

Friends’ Association

See main article: Freundeskreis Lichtentaler Allee e.V.

The Freundeskreis Lichtentaler Allee was founded in 2002 to preserve the beauty of the Lichtentaler Allee. Private donations let the association step in where the town of Baden-Baden lacks the money to maintain the park. It also puts on lectures and guided tours about the avenue, and it backed Baden-Baden’s bid for World Heritage status. On 24 July 2021 UNESCO inscribed Baden-Baden on the World Heritage List as one of the Great Spa Towns of Europe.^[7] Since 2012 it has provided an audio guide to the Lichtentaler Allee as well.^[8]

Visitor Information

The Lichtentaler Allee is a public park, accessible at all times. It has no opening hours and charges no admission.

Getting There and Parking

Traffic is allowed on the Lichtentaler Allee only in the third section, along the Klosterwiese, and parking on the avenue itself is prohibited everywhere. The Augusta underground car park beneath Augustaplatz (route planner) lies only a few metres from the first section, just across the Oos. A public pay car park at the corner of Bertholdstraße and Ludwig-Wilhelm-Straße (route planner) puts you close to the Gönneranlage and the middle section. The surrounding streets may have free spaces as well. For the third section, a few parking spaces can be found around Klosterplatz (route planner).

Tours and Round Trips

If you would rather not explore the avenue in the classic way, on foot, you can join a Segway tour or book a carriage ride.

Seasonal Highlights

In early March the flowering crocuses in the first section draw crowds. April and May bring tulips to the Dahlia Garden. June is the month for a detour into the Gönneranlage, when its roses stand in full bloom. In summer the Baden-Baden Philharmonic plays a free concert at the Philharmonische Parknacht, against the backdrop of the Sintersteinbrunnen and with the avenue’s giant trees illuminated. The town’s budget situation forced its cancellation in 2025.^[9] September is worth another visit to the Dahlia Garden, when the dahlias flower. In October the avenue’s foliage turns autumnal. Experience shows that the trees in the first section colour a little earlier, so the second half of the month is the time for a walk along the Klosterwiese. Under a blanket of snow in winter, the Lichtentaler Allee makes a dreamlike picture.

Sources

• Bernd Weigel Parkführer Baden-Baden. Die Gärten und Kuranlagen im Oostal. 2nd edition, Wesel-Kommunikation, Baden-Baden 2003, ISBN 3-00-010770-3.
• Ulrich Coenen Von Aquae bis Baden-Baden - die Baugeschichte der Stadt und ihr Beitrag zur Entwicklung der Kurarchitektur Aachen, Mainz 2008, ISBN 3-8107-0023-1 pp. 458 ff.

References

1. ↑^1.1↑^1.2 Johann Ludwig Klüber Beschreibung von Baden bei Rastatt 1810 Cotta’sche Buchhandlung Tübingen (online)
2. ↑ Weiss, memorandum; cited in Coenen, as above, p. 459
3. ↑ Coenen, as above, p. 466
4. ↑ Bernd Weigel Parkführer Baden-Baden as above, p. 38
5. ↑ Bernd Weigel Parkführer Baden-Baden as above, p. 37 f.
6. ↑ Bernd Weigel Parkführer Baden-Baden as above, p. 32
7. ↑ Great Spa Towns of Europe – Baden-Baden, Ministerium für Landesentwicklung und Wohnen Baden-Württemberg, accessed on 9 July 2026 (Archived)
8. ↑ Audio guide of the Freundeskreis Lichtentaler Allee
9. ↑ Streich-Konzert in Baden-Baden geht weiter: Philharmonische Parknacht entfällt, Badische Neueste Nachrichten, accessed on 9 July 2026 (Archived)