The Dahlia Garden on the
Lichtentaler Allee.
What the guidebooks leave out.
The Lichtentaler Allee is in every guidebook about Baden-Baden. The dahlia garden at the end of it is in almost none.
The reviews of the avenue name the old lime trees, the villas, the river Oos, the abbey at the far end. The dahlias rarely come up. Yet in late summer around 1,800 of them flower there in 64 beds. On two mornings a week you can take a bouquet home with you.
Katharina Bender, who runs Aqua Aurelia, walks down there with her son Johannes every year, picks out their favourite bloom and casts a vote in the contest for the finest dahlia.
You don't need a passion for gardens. The beds work even if you can't name a single variety.
What is worth knowing before you set off: when the dahlias flower, which days matter, how to get there and how to get back. And what you are allowed to take with you.
1,800 dahlias. 64 beds.
Two blooms in the layout.
On the Klosterwiese meadow at the end of the Lichtentaler Allee, around 1,800 dahlias flower in 64 beds in late summer. The beds are laid out as two large dahlia blooms: one in red, orange and yellow, the other in white, pink and violet.
You only see the pattern once you are standing in front of it. The beds run outwards in rays, like petals.
The garden grows small-flowered ball dahlias, waterlily dahlias and large-flowered cactus dahlias. Every bed carries its own variety, and every variety a name: Herrlichkeit Erpel, Stadt Spremberg, Verrone's Obsidian, Harzfee, Vielliebchen. The society's flyer shows all 64 with a photo.
Between the beds stands the Bénazet Pavilion, a Swiss chalet brought over from the garden of the town's former casino operator. Alongside it, memorials to Brahms, Clara Schumann and Robert Stolz.
Come in spring and you stand in the same place in front of 6,500 tulips in 46 varieties.
They flower in late summer. The dates are fixed.
The first dahlias open in midsummer, full flower comes in late summer. The garden is open to everyone: no entry fee, no opening hours.
Bouquets are sold from 10 August. In September visitors vote for the finest dahlia, and the season closes at the end of October.
The dates for 2026:
10 to 30 September
vote for the finest dahlia
16 September, 4 pm
botanical tour led by the parks department, meeting point the Hirtenhäuschen hut on the Klosterwiese
1 October, 2 pm
the winning dahlia announced by Alexander Wieland, the town's Deputy Mayor
22 October, 10 am to 12 noon
last bouquet sale of the season
23 October, from 1.30 pm
collection of pre-ordered tubers
The dates change from year to year. The society keeps them up to date on its website and runs a WhatsApp channel. Mrs Bender: "They are pretty quick about it." The flyer with all the season's dahlia varieties is there to download as well.
Two kilometres of avenue. The bus brings you back.
From Aqua Aurelia it is around two and a half kilometres to the dahlia garden, a good half hour on foot. Bus route 201 brings you back from the Aubrücke stop.
Bouquets on Mondays and Thursdays.
From 10 August, dahlia bouquets are sold in the garden on Mondays and Thursdays, from 9.30 to 11 am. The sale is run by the Friends of the Dahlia Garden society.
Two groups of volunteers come to the garden on those two days, right through the summer. What they cut back does not end up on the compost heap. Mrs Bender: "You are allowed to take home the ones that have been cut off."
You put your own bouquet together, from whatever colours come off the beds that day. For prices, ask on the spot or look on the society's website.
One thing worth planning around: The Café Lumen at the abbey is closed on Mondays. If you want to put the bouquet together with a coffee, come on a Thursday.
On 22 October 2026 the last sale of the season runs from 10 am to 12 noon.
Mrs Bender sees the same thing every year:
"You see people riding around on their bikes, perfectly happy, with their dahlia bouquets."
The bouquets dry well.
In September, Baden-Baden votes for the finest dahlia.
From 10 to 30 September 2026 you can vote for your favourite dahlia. You drop your ballot paper into the ballot box by the information board in the dahlia garden.
Because every bed carries its own variety, the flyer helps you choose: it shows all 64 with a photo, a name and a number.
Mrs Bender does this every year with her son Johannes:
"Johannes and I love doing it: going along and picking out the one we find the most beautiful of all."
On 16 September 2026 at 4 pm the parks department leads a tour through the garden. The meeting point is the Hirtenhäuschen hut on the Klosterwiese.
The votes are counted at the end of September. On 1 October 2026 at 2 pm, Alexander Wieland, the town's Deputy Mayor, announces the winning dahlia. Bouquets are sold afterwards.
Tubers only by advance order.
If you want a dahlia in your own garden, you order the tuber in advance: by email between 1 and 21 October 2026 at the latest, 4 euros per tuber. Collection is on 23 October from 1.30 pm.
Orders go through knollen@dahliengarten-baden-baden.de and nowhere else. The society works through the emails in the order they arrive.
Nothing is handed out before 1.30 pm. The society gives the reason itself: the team needs that time to get everything ready.
A tuber is not something you can take home on the spur of the moment. A bouquet is, on every Monday and Thursday of the season.
The best time for your visit.
Thursday morning is the best day: there are bouquets, and the Café Lumen at the abbey is open. For the avenue with stops along the way, allow two hours.
| Day | Bouquets 9.30–11 am | Café Lumen | Weekly market, Klosterplatz, 7 am–12 noon |
|---|---|---|---|
| Monday | ✓ | Closed | – |
| Tuesday | – | Closed | ✓ |
| Wednesday | – | from 11 am | – |
| Thursday | ✓ | from 11 am | – |
| Friday | – | from 11 am | ✓ |
| Saturday & Sunday | – | from 11 am | – |
Thursday morning is the only day when the bouquet sale and the abbey café coincide.
If you only want to see the garden, half an hour does it. If you walk the avenue both ways, take your time in the garden and have a coffee at the abbey, allow half a day.
Benches stand the whole length of the avenue. You can sit down with a book by the Oos, and the old lime trees give shade, even in August.
On to the abbey. Coffee in the courtyard.
Lichtenthal Abbey lies 500 metres beyond the dahlia garden. In the abbey courtyard, the Café Lumen serves coffee and home-made cake from Wednesday to Sunday, between 11 am and 5.30 pm.
The way there is the second half of the walk. Mrs Bender's tip from the menu: the cinnamon bun.
In summer you sit on the terrace among the trees, in winter inside under the old vaulting. Closed on Mondays and Tuesdays.
The abbey itself is home to a community of Cistercian nuns. On some weekends there is a guided tour.
On Tuesdays and Fridays the weekly market is on Klosterplatz, from 7 am to 12 noon. A good stop on the way back.
One parks department, one society, two groups of volunteers.
The gardeners of the parks department plan and plant the dahlia garden afresh every year. The Friends of the Dahlia Garden society funds the specialist work, and around 20 volunteers look after the beds.
Walter Rieger, then director of parks, laid the garden out in 1967. The first dahlia show opened on 13 August 1967. In the early 2000s the garden stood on the financial brink. Local people responded by founding the friends' association, which has looked after it since 2004.
The beds and the varieties change every year. The rhythm stays the same: Mondays and Thursdays, right through the summer.
Mrs Bender sees the result:
"You can tell how much love everyone puts into it."
Membership costs 35 euros a year, 50 euros for partners and companies. To take on a whole bed, sponsorship starts at 400 euros.
The dahlia garden and Aqua Aurelia.
From Aqua Aurelia it is five minutes to the start of the Lichtentaler Allee, and a good half hour to the dahlias.
This is the walk we recommend to our guests more often than any other. Between August and October it gains a destination.
If you come back with a bouquet, we will put a vase in your suite.
The afternoon is still open after that: bathrobe on, lift down, two minutes through the passage into the warm water of the Caracalla Therme. The Friedrichsbad is a five-minute walk. The next morning, breakfast runs until eleven, and until half past eleven at the weekend.
Put the walk on a Thursday morning. The rest of the day doesn't need planning.