Japanese Garden: Düsseldorf Travel Guide (4.4★)

A pocket of Japan inside Nordpark

Nordpark is all wide lawns and straight lines. It’s a formal park on a large scale, with long grass axes and fountains that run down toward the Rhine. Then you step through into the Japanese Garden and everything shrinks. The paths narrow and start to curve, and the view closes in around water.

The garden was designed by the landscape architect Iwaki Ishiguro. It’s built around fish ponds and running water, with planting kept close to the edges so that each turn shows you something new. Expect stone lanterns, small bridges over the water and koi turning slowly under the surface.

It’s one of the most-reviewed green spaces in Düsseldorf and it gets very busy. Treat it as a popular stop and plan your timing around that.

Why it’s in Düsseldorf at all

Düsseldorf is home to one of the largest Japanese communities in Europe. Japanese companies have run their European offices here for decades, and the city has the schools, shops and restaurants to go with them. The garden came out of that relationship. It was a gift from the Japanese community to the city in the mid-1970s.

That history gives the place some context. It wasn’t built as a theme-park imitation. It was a thank-you to the city, so it was laid out with care and has been looked after the same way. If you’ve already eaten your way along Immermannstraße, the city’s “Little Tokyo”, this is the quieter side of the same story.

Reading the water

The pond is the point of the whole garden, so it’s worth walking slowly. A Japanese stroll garden is designed to be seen in sequence. Every bend in the path frames a different composition of stone, water and clipped planting, and if you rush the loop the effect flattens into “a nice pond”.

A few things to look for as you go:

• The koi. They drift in and out of the shade under the bridges. If you stand still at the water’s edge for a minute or two, they tend to come closer.
• Stone lanterns. They’re placed where they catch your eye from across the water, not just where you pass them on the path.
• Moving water. Listen for the sections where it falls or runs over stone, then compare them with the still parts of the pond.
• Borrowed views. In places the trees of Nordpark rise behind the garden, and the design treats them as part of the backdrop.

Autumn is when the maples and other deciduous planting change colour against the evergreens. That’s the season most photographers aim for. Spring gives you fresh greens and flowering shrubs. In winter the bones of the garden show clearly: the stone, the bridges and the line of the pond.

Timing around the weekend crush

There’s one figure that matters here. On weekends the garden is busiest from 11am to 7pm. For most of a Saturday or Sunday, then, the narrow paths and bridges fill up and you’ll be queuing behind other people’s photos.

If you can only come at the weekend, arrive before 11am. Early morning light on the pond is also more flattering than harsh midday sun. We don’t have measured quiet hours for weekdays. Still, a garden like this usually feels calmer when office workers and schools are busy than it does on a free Saturday afternoon.

The listed hours are 24 hours a day, every day. Even so, a garden built around water and uneven stone edges is best seen in daylight. Come when you can actually see where the path meets the pond.

Walking the garden without disturbing it

This is a garden built for looking, and visitors behave accordingly. Do the same and the visit goes better for everyone.

• Stay on the paths. The moss, the lawn edges and the stones by the water are part of the design, not seating or a shortcut. Stepping onto them for a photo is the quickest way to get frowned at.
• Keep your voice down. Sound carries across still water. Germans in parks tend to be quiet anyway, and here it’s expected.
• Don’t feed the koi unless there’s a posted sign saying you can. Bread is bad for them.
• Give photographers a beat. The bridges are the most-photographed spots. People usually take turns, so wait your turn and then move on.
• Picnics belong in Nordpark. Spread your blanket on the big lawns outside and keep the garden itself for walking.

Nordpark is a public park and the listed hours don’t mention a ticket desk. If that changes, the rules will be posted at the entrance.

Getting to Nordpark

Take the U-Bahn. Lines U78 and U79 stop at Nordpark/Aquazoo, and from there it’s a few minutes’ walk into the park. The U78 also continues to Messe Düsseldorf, the trade-fair grounds, so the garden is an easy escape if you’re in town for a fair.

The address for maps is Kaiserswerther Str. 380, 40474 Düsseldorf. It’s in the city’s northern district, between the centre and the airport. On a bike, the Rhine riverside path gets you close.

Allow 30 minutes for a single loop, or an hour if you like to sit and watch the water. Add more if you’ll be walking the rest of Nordpark.

Making a half day of it

The garden is small, so pair it with something nearby. The Aquazoo Löbbecke Museum is right next to the same U-Bahn stop and combines an aquarium with natural history. It works well for families or on a rainy day.

Nordpark’s formal lawns and fountains are worth a walk in their own right, and the Rhine is a short stroll west. To keep the Japanese thread going, head back into the centre for dinner around Immermannstraße. If you’re in town in early summer, look up the dates for Japan-Tag, the city’s big Japanese festival on the Rhine embankment.