Luisenstadt Canal

The Luisenstadt Canal is a filled-in urban waterway in Berlin that once linked the Spree to the Landwehrkanal. Opened in 1852, it was meant to bring shipping and trade to the growing Luisenstadt district but never paid off due to lock problems. In 1926 it was filled in except for the Engelbecken pond and redesigned by garden director Erwin Barth as a long landscaped axis, now a protected garden monument. When the Berlin Wall went up in 1961 the inner-German border cut straight across the park, leaving the northern stretch derelict for decades. After 1989 the green corridor was gradually restored. Today you can walk roughly two kilometres from the Engelbecken to the Spree past rose gardens, fountains and old bridge remnants, one of the quietest promenades between Kreuzberg and Mitte.