Free Walking Tour Celle: From Castle to Französischer Garten

The Celle Walking Tour in Six Stops

1. 1

   Celler Schloss

   

   Begin at the Celler Schloss and look up at the roofline first: a ring of gables runs around the roofs, and the domed towers have an unusual shape. Both go back to Duke George William, who from 1670 remodelled the old Renaissance seat into a modern residence and, to recall his years in Italy, had the façades copied from Venetian buildings. The quadrangular building around a rectangular courtyard is the largest castle in the southern Lüneburg Heath.

   The story starts much earlier. Around 980 a Brunonen count built a fortified tower called Kellu to guard a ford over the River Aller. Otto the Strict extended it in 1292, and the cellar vault and lower floors of that watch tower still survive beneath the castle theatre. In 1378, after the War of the Lüneburg Succession, the Dukes of Brunswick-Lüneburg moved their residence here from Lüneburg and began turning the moated fortress into a palace.

   Frederick the Pious expanded it in the 1470s and the chapel was consecrated in 1485. From 1530 Ernest I the Confessor had it decorated in Renaissance style, while ramparts and bastions pushed the defences further out. By then it had massive corner towers, a large main tower and the features of Weser Renaissance, the shell that George William later dressed in Venetian clothes.

   Is it worth going in? Admission is charged, with reduced tickets and free entry for children and pupils. If the ducal court is the reason you came to Celle, give it about an hour.

   From here it is 270 m, about 4 minutes, across the former outer bailey to the Bomann-Museum, which faces the castle on the Schlossplatz.

   Hours

   May–October: Tue–Sun 10:00–17:00; November–April: Tue–Sun 11:00–16:00; 1st-3rd Advent weekends: 10:00–17:00; Mon closed

   Price

   10.00 EUR regular, 7.00 EUR reduced, free for children and pupils; with guided tour: 12.00 EUR regular, 10.00 EUR reduced; combination ticket (Residenzmuseum + Bomann-Museum + Kunstmuseum Celle): 15.00 EUR regular, 10.00 EUR reduced

   Website

   residenzmuseum.de ↗

   Location

   Celler Schloss on Google Maps ↗

2. 2

   Bomann-Museum

   

   Study the façade before you go in. The building is a deliberate collage of styles: castle and townhouse, solid masonry and half-timbering, Gothic and Renaissance details, partly assembled from reused older parts. Hanover architect Alfred Sasse built it between 1903 and 1907, with founder Wilhelm Bomann heavily involved in the plans. The writer Hermann Löns mocked it as a 'veritable architectural pudding'. On the north side you will notice a bare platform: a prominent tower spire stood there until it was taken down in 1929 because it had become unsafe.

   The museum began in 1892 as the 'Patriotic Museum' in the Bergstraße and took its founder's name in 1928. Today it is one of the largest city museums in Lower Saxony, devoted to folk life and to the history of the region and the town. Emperor Wilhelm II toured the new building in 1908 and 1911 and donated a monumental mural by the Berlin painter Carl Röchling showing the Battle of the Göhrde of 16 September 1813, where Prussia and Hanover fought side by side. Half-timbered houses on the Stechbahn, among them the former widows' house of the parish, were added before 1926.

   The museum charges admission, with reduced tickets and free entry for children and pupils. Allow an hour if local history interests you; if there is time for only one museum, choose between the courtly world of the castle and the townspeople's story told here.

   The Stadtkirche St. Marien is a mere 20 m away, a minute on foot.

   Hours

   Tue–Sun 11:00–17:00, Mon closed

   Price

   8.00 EUR regular, 5.00 EUR reduced; combination ticket (Bomann-Museum + Kunstmuseum Celle + Residenzmuseum): 15.00 EUR regular, 10.00 EUR reduced; free for children and pupils; free admission on the last Saturday of each month

   Website

   bomann-museum.de ↗

   Location

   Bomann-Museum on Google Maps ↗

3. 3

   Stadtkirche St. Marien

   

   From outside, the Stadtkirche St. Marien looks plain: a three-aisled hall church of brick and fieldstone, without a transept. Building began soon after 1300, once Duke Otto the Strict had given up Altencelle and founded a new settlement four kilometres to the northwest, the town you are standing in. The choir was consecrated in 1308, and the nave grew through the 14th century.

   Inside, the mood changes completely. Between 1676 and 1698 the church was thoroughly remodelled in Baroque style: Tornielli and other craftsmen working at the castle covered the barrel-vaulted wooden ceiling with stucco panels, gave the octagonal pillars stucco capitals and placed ten sandstone apostles on the brackets above, joined by Peter and Paul at the chancel arch. Look at that arch for the oldest work in the church, a late medieval crucifixion group from around 1500 with Mary and John beneath the cross. In the choir, the original Gothic rib vaulting still shows most clearly under the stucco.

   This became a Protestant preaching church when Duke Ernest the Confessor and his superintendent general Urbanus Rhegius brought the Reformation to the Lüneburg and Celle lands. Beneath the choir lies the ducal crypt of 1576, closed to the public. Among those buried there are Duchess Eleonore, Princess Sophie Dorothea and Caroline Mathilde, Queen of Denmark, whose memorial you will meet again in the Französischer Garten.

   Entry is free; the optional tower climb is paid separately. Plan about 20 minutes, then walk 420 m, around 6 minutes, to the Alter Provisor.

   Hours

   Tue–Sat 11:00–17:00, Sun after morning service, Mon closed

   Price

   Free (church entry free; optional tower climb 2.00 EUR adults, 1.00 EUR children)

   Website

   stadtkirche-celle.de ↗

   Location

   Stadtkirche St. Marien on Google Maps ↗

4. 4

   Alter Provisor

   

   The Alter Provisor is a shop in a restored half-timbered building, opened in November 2014 and named after Celle's own herbal liqueur. A 'Provisor' was the pharmacist or senior assistant in charge of a pharmacy, which already tells you where the drink comes from.

   The recipe goes back to an aqua vitae, a 'water of life', in the recipe book of the pharmacist Otto Kaiser, who ran the Rottmann pharmacy in the early 20th century. In 1910 it was renamed Ratsapotheke and taken over by Carl Greve, who first produced the liqueur in larger quantities. Jost Greve gave it the name Alter Provisor in 1980, registered the trademark and made it from 1973 until 2013. In January 2014, in its 165th year, the Ratsapotheke closed. The brand passed to a new company, was produced for a while in Reutlingen, and since August 2014 has been made in northern Germany again.

   The liqueur itself is strong and bitter: 50 percent alcohol, 10 percent sugar, and extracts of Asian spice plants and native medicinal herbs. Entry is free. Ten minutes are enough unless you are looking for a souvenir with a story.

   From here it is 200 m, about 3 minutes, to the Synagoge Celle.

   Hours

   Tue–Fri 10:00–18:00, Sat 10:00–16:00, Sun–Mon closed

   Price

   Free

   Website

   alterprovisor-celle.de ↗

   Location

   Alter Provisor on Google Maps ↗

5. 5

   Synagoge Celle

   

   The Synagoge Celle does not announce itself. It was built around 1740 in the half-timbered style typical of Celle and is the oldest surviving half-timbered synagogue in Lower Saxony. Jews in the Duchy of Brunswick-Lüneburg were permitted to build synagogues from 1737; a year later the community bought two plots here. A major restoration in 1883 added leaded glass.

   In the November pogroms of 1938 the interior was wrecked, and ritual objects were thrown into the street and burned. The building was not set alight only because the attackers feared the fire would spread to the neighbouring houses and the tightly packed half-timbered old town. It then served as a storeroom, and from 1942 the remaining members of the Jewish community were housed in the front buildings until their deportation. Look down at the pavement in front of Im Kreise 23 and 24: Stolpersteine laid in 2004 remember them, including two Russian prisoners of war, Jakob Gerschez and David Klatschko, who had last been forced labourers in Oldau.

   Services resumed in 1945. The town bought the buildings in 1969, restored them together with the two front houses between 1972 and 1974, and on 20 June 1974 Rabbi Nathan Peter Levinson of Heidelberg rededicated the synagogue. Since 1996 the front houses have held changing exhibitions and a documentation of Jewish life in Celle.

   Admission is free. Give it half an hour, longer if you want to read the documentation. Then walk 630 m, about 8 minutes, to the Französischer Garten.

   Hours

   Tue–Fri 11:00–16:00, Sun 11:00–16:00, Mon & Sat closed

   Price

   Free (general museum admission free; booked group tours via Stadtarchiv 65.00 EUR, school groups free)

   Website

   celle.de ↗

   Location

   Synagoge Celle on Google Maps ↗

6. 6

   Französischer Garten

   

   The walk ends in the Französischer Garten, a historic public park on the southern edge of the old town, protected as a listed monument, open around the clock and free. Along its north side runs the Herzogin-Eleonore-Allee, a four-row avenue of lime trees about 330 m long; a mulberry avenue closes the garden off to the south.

   At the western end lies the circular pond, first shown in this form in 1770; before that there were four rectangular ponds. It measures 95 m across, two old weeping willows stand on a small island, and the multi-jet fountain in the middle is lit in the evening. In front of the pond, the enclosed rose garden still recalls the layout of the former Baroque garden.

   In the eastern part stand a small Renaissance palace built in 1611, an open-air stage and the memorial to Caroline Mathilde, the Danish queen banished to Celle, carved by Adam Friedrich Oeser in 1784 from Crottendorf marble. After the crypt of the Stadtkirche St. Marien, this is where her story comes full circle.

   Along the east and south edges flows the Magnusgraben, dug in 1370 as part of the town fortifications and named after Duke Magnus. It branches off the Aller east of Celle, feeds the big pond and, by way of the town moat, the moat of the castle where you started. If you want to head back there, the GPS navigation in your browser leads you to the Celler Schloss.

   Hours

   24/7

   Price

   Free

   Website

   celle-tourismus.de ↗

   Location

   Französischer Garten on Google Maps ↗

Shorter Ways Through Celle

Not everyone wants the dukes and the old town in one go. These two halves of the route stand on their own.

Court and museums

Stops: 1, 2, 3

For visitors who came for the ducal residence and local history. Only 5 minutes of walking between the Celler Schloss, the Bomann-Museum and the Stadtkirche St. Marien; admission at the castle and the museum, the church is free.

Old town, Jewish Celle and the park

Stops: 3, 4, 5, 6

For a free walk without museum tickets: from the Stadtkirche St. Marien past the Alter Provisor and the Synagoge Celle to the Französischer Garten, 17 minutes of walking, no admission anywhere except the optional church tower.

How Long the Celle Tour Takes, With and Without Museums

The walking itself takes 21 minutes. The legs are short: the Bomann-Museum and the church stand just 20 m apart, and the longest stretch is the last one, from the synagogue to the park.

Give the castle and the Bomann-Museum an hour each, the church 20 minutes, the Alter Provisor 10, the synagogue and the park half an hour each, and the full route takes about 3 hours 50 minutes. Starting at 11:00 on a weekday, you reach the synagogue at about 13:45.

The court and museums variant takes about two and a half hours with both museums; the old town variant is done in just under two hours.

Before You Set Off in Celle

• Start: The Celler Schloss is the recommended start, but you can join at any stop; the order of the walk is the recommended one.
• Finish: The Französischer Garten. If you want to return to the castle, the GPS navigation in your browser leads you back.
• Best days: Plan it for the middle of the week; that is when you can see every stop on the route.
• Time of day: Start in the late morning, when the castle and the Bomann-Museum are open.
• Costs: The walk and four of the six stops are free. If you plan both museums, the combination ticket, also available at a reduced rate, covers the Residenzmuseum in the castle, the Bomann-Museum and the Kunstmuseum Celle.

Common Questions About Celle