Rautenstrauch Canal
A walk along the Rautenstrauch Canal feels like a brief step out of the city: you step from the sidewalk into greenery – and suddenly a quiet waterline runs next to you, so straight as if someone had drawn it through the park with a ruler. The light lies on the surface, leaves float at the edge, and with every step, the reflections of treetops and sky change.
The Rautenstrauch Canal is a piece of designed park landscape in the Cologne district of Lindenthal: a path that wants to lead you along the water, and a path where Cologne seems quiet, clear, and almost a bit elegant for a moment.
Water Architecture of the 1920sThe Rautenstrauch Canal is a deliberately designed urban landscape: a straight, so-called watercourse, which connects the Inner and Outer Cologne Green Belt as part of the Lindenthal canals. The facility was created in the mid-1920s; planned in the context of Fritz Schumacher's general development plan – and implemented by Cologne's then director of horticulture, Fritz Encke. Promenade, rows of trees, and sightlines reference great models: the paths are reminiscent of 18th-century garden layouts, and the bridges of Dutch canals.
Particularly iconic is the round basin at the beginning, flanked by the double sculpture "Centaur and Naiad." From there, the canal runs in three sections towards the Stadtwaldgürtel; today, it is fed by groundwater, among other things, via a well built in 2016. And it continues to the Clarenbach Canal.
Fancy a Walk & Museum?Anna Maria Adele Rautenstrauch was the namesake for the canal of the same name – and at the same time, the benefactor of the more distant Rautenstrauch-Joest-Museum. A visit here or to the nearby Museum of East Asian Art is more than recommended after your walk: for an in-depth insight into the various cultures of our world or into East Asian art: with ceramics, woodblock prints, painting, calligraphy, and sculpture.
The Rautenstrauch Canal is a piece of designed park landscape in the Cologne district of Lindenthal: a path that wants to lead you along the water, and a path where Cologne seems quiet, clear, and almost a bit elegant for a moment.
Water Architecture of the 1920sThe Rautenstrauch Canal is a deliberately designed urban landscape: a straight, so-called watercourse, which connects the Inner and Outer Cologne Green Belt as part of the Lindenthal canals. The facility was created in the mid-1920s; planned in the context of Fritz Schumacher's general development plan – and implemented by Cologne's then director of horticulture, Fritz Encke. Promenade, rows of trees, and sightlines reference great models: the paths are reminiscent of 18th-century garden layouts, and the bridges of Dutch canals.
Particularly iconic is the round basin at the beginning, flanked by the double sculpture "Centaur and Naiad." From there, the canal runs in three sections towards the Stadtwaldgürtel; today, it is fed by groundwater, among other things, via a well built in 2016. And it continues to the Clarenbach Canal.
Fancy a Walk & Museum?Anna Maria Adele Rautenstrauch was the namesake for the canal of the same name – and at the same time, the benefactor of the more distant Rautenstrauch-Joest-Museum. A visit here or to the nearby Museum of East Asian Art is more than recommended after your walk: for an in-depth insight into the various cultures of our world or into East Asian art: with ceramics, woodblock prints, painting, calligraphy, and sculpture.
Good to know
Eligibility
for families
for individual guests
Directions & Parking facilities
The walk from the Melaten stop (tram lines: 1, 7) to the Rautenstrauchkanal is approximately 450 meters.
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