Eberswalde brings together wildlife, city history and leisure in the park, each with its own focus. Eberswalde Zoo is open every day of the year, 365 days a year, from 9 a.m. until dusk. Check the opening hours again before your trip. When planning, consider whether you want to focus on the zoo, the Family Garden or the city’s history.
Zoo and Family Garden: different leisure activities
The zoo has ten adventure playgrounds, a petting zoo and a children’s safari. For kindergarten and school groups, the ZooSchule provides age-appropriate basic zoological knowledge and explains ecological connections. So, alongside a zoo visit, Eberswalde’s programme also includes specific play and educational activities.
The Eberswalde Family Garden is a 17-hectare park offering leisure and recreation. Visitors can explore the underground operating tunnels by pedal boat. The viewing platform on the Montage-Eber crane is 28 metres high; visitors can also play disc golf on 14 holes. Pedal boating, the viewpoint and disc golf each offer a different focus within the park, helping you plan your day more specifically.
City history at the museum and along the Finow Canal
Eberswalde Museum is housed in the historic Adler Pharmacy, the city’s oldest half-timbered building. Its permanent exhibition covers the history of the house, the city and the region. This includes industrialisation in the Finow Valley, as well as forestry education and research in the 19th century. A full-size replica of the Eberswalde Gold Treasure is also on display. The museum therefore focuses both on broader historical developments and on a specific exhibit.
Another notable place on the Finow Canal is the Borsig Hall: it is located at Eisenspalterei, directly opposite today’s Eberswalde Family Garden. The Finow Canal is 42 kilometres long, has twelve historic locks and is considered Germany’s oldest artificial waterway still open to navigation. The Eberswalde canoe trip is a separate activity: it is 9.5 kilometres long and takes about four hours, including four locks. The described cycling tour follows the Finow Canal. This offers different ways to explore the canal without confusing the length of the waterway with the distance or duration of an individual tour.
More ideas for exploring Barnim
The wider Barnim destination offers more themes to explore on a longer trip. Chorin Monastery is a landmark of North German Brick Gothic architecture; the Niederfinow Boat Lift is Germany’s oldest working boat lift. The cycle route network in Barnim district is 610 kilometres long. Cycling in Barnim Nature Park is also a popular visitor activity in the region. These regional themes complement Eberswalde, while the zoo, museum and Family Garden are the city’s main attractions.
Discover more destinations: Niederfinow, Oderberg, Hohenfinow, Parsteinsee, Lunow-Stolzenhagen, Werneuchen, Ahrensfelde, Friedrichswalde.
Back to the broader travel guide: Barnim.
