Hot Damn, Potsdam

Potsdam is a city 30 minutes away from Berlin by train and is famous for being a residence to Prussian kings. There are a bunch of palaces, including a large park in the town that houses many of these royal residences. Things didn’t go exactly as planned, but we still got to see a lot of what we came for.

First off, the bike rental place ran out of bikes. It would have been nice, but we hoofed it just fine and were able to use our transit ticket on a bus back to the train at the end of the day. Second, they closed the park on us at 2pm for an event that features fireworks that go off at 12:30am ("Schwache Soße!"; German for 'Weak Sauce').

There is a Dutch Quarter that features Dutch style buildings that are filled with shops.

The city center is lined with cafes and nice stores along cobblestone streets. The main street is closed to traffic and it was full of people, including this Bachelor Party, complete with wagon-full-of-booze. The groom (guy in orange and wig) saw us taking pictures and approached us with a tray, full of what appeared to be airplane bottle sized shots of some liquor, and offered them to us for a Euro each. “Thanks, but no thanks” was our answer.

The main attraction in Potsdam is Sanssouci Park, a huge complex of well-manicured gardens, palaces built by Prussian Kings, and other structures.

The jewel of the park is Sanssouci, the summer palace of Frederick The Great. There are levels of terraces covered in foliage that have multiple naves filled with plants enclosed by gates (best description I could come up with). At the top is the palace, painted yellow and adorned with statues and Rococo styled ornament.

After being booted from the main park, we made our way to the other side of town to the new park. It lies along a lake and includes this structure called the Marble Palace. The exterior has a lot of marble and the interior is filled with it, hence the name.

At the north end of the park is Cecilienhof, a palace made in the style of an English Tudor country house. It is massive, and the gardens around it and lake front location were impressive. It is also famous for being the site of the Potsdam Conference, where Churchill, Truman, and Stalin met to punish and carve up Germany after WWII.