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If you couldn't travel to Egypt, you brought Egypt to Europe. But not in the form of a real obelisk by ship, like Napoleon once did to Paris, but by making your own obelisks by hand in the Brandenburg region. Provided with a few hieroglyphs, the main entrance portal to Sanssouci Park made from it looks deceptively real - it's just stupid that nobody can read the fantasy characters.
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Ruinenberg
Question: Who would like to have a ruined building? Answer: The electors and kings of Prussia. Of course, not to waste money, but to create an eye-catcher (other rulers did the same) and at the same time to conceal a technical structure: the higher-lying pond, from which the fountain of Sanssouci Palace is fed.
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Sanssouci Palace
The dream castle of Frederick the Great, situated lonely on a small vineyard. Wine still grows here today, of course behind glass. The rococo-style castle has only 8 rooms, each with access to the garden. Only for the king, his dogs and his male-only visitors such as the French philosopher Voltaire. They discussed, always in French, played music - the king played the flute himself and also composed. Here Frederick was closest to his ideal as an absolutist ruler.
Duration: 30 minutes
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The Historic Windmill
This mill is still here because its owner entered into a legal dispute with the king. And indeed won! In the first instance, however, only. But cheers to the Prussian constitutional state. Grain can still be ground here today. A visit with a great view of the park is highly recommended!
Duration: 10 minutes
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Orangerie im Park Sanssouci
The Palace Orangery - because it has an excellent view of the park - houses the Orangery. Many of the exotic plants in the park have to go in there in winter. At the same time, a new eye-catcher was created on the ridge with the Roman-style castle.
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Today a small café, it was originally built for the winegrowers in the Potsdam vineyard. Nevertheless, it should look nice, so the decision was made to wear chinois, which were hip at the time. Completely built in the traditional Chinese pagoda style, the senses of sight and taste get their money's worth here.
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Neue Kammern
A private castle just for the guests, along with the servants. There was no room for this in the main castle, which itself consists of only 8 rooms. Of course, important main guests like the French philosopher Voltaire lodged with the king directly on top of the vineyard. But even this small castle is anything but a lumber room.
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Bildergalerie
Like all Prussian kings, Frederick the Great collected pictures and paintings. The only unusual thing is that he housed them in a specially built castle. A feast for the eyes.
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This and the large water fountain are, so to speak, the "postcard view" of Sanssouci Palace. It was warmer in the 18th century than at least in the 20th, but Potsdam was a bit far north for wine growing. The king's gardeners helped with a trick: they hid the precious vines behind glass. That helped in the winter and also the spring like a spring bed covered with glass. In this way a delicious wine could be produced. In case of need, there were still deliveries from France and Italy ... For the fountain, a separate lake was specially created higher up, artfully disguised with a ruin, the ruin mountain. However, this was not completed during Frederick's lifetime.
Duration: 15 minutes
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Potsdam Friedenskirche
King Friedrich-Wilhelm IV's love of Italy reached its climax here, in the Friedenskirche. The bell tower, the campanile, is entirely Italian in style. separated from the main building. This nestles around a small artificial pond, in which it is reflected in an ideal way. This is also where the ruler found his final resting place, far away from the hustle and bustle of Berlin and the Hohenzollern burial place in the Berlin Cathedral.
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Sanssouci Park
The park is the real attraction. Completely integrated into the landscape of Potsdam, it connects Sanssouci Palace with the vineyard and the large fountain in front of it over 2km with the new palace, the king's large guest palace with apartments for his relatives during visits. In between, many disappeared paths with plentiful planting and attractions such as small castles, Roman baths or the Chinese tea house.
Duration: 45 minutes
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Chinesisches Haus (Chinese House)
Rather than just a tea pavilion. The gem should allow visitors to immerse themselves in the world of China in the style of Mode Chinoise, equipped with precious furniture and delicate Chinese porcelain. All lavishly decorated with gold.
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Roman Baths
The longing for antiquity of the designers of Sanssouci Park knew no bounds. King Friedrich-Wilhelm IV in particular, who also otherwise raved about Italy, excelled here. Admittedly, bathing was rarely done, the interior was intended to delight the senses of the eye and the imagination.
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Charlottenhof Castle
To each his place, and to every king's child a castle. At least if it was the crown prince or the crown princess. Especially since the Berlin Palace was far from becoming vacant when the heirs to the throne were married, but a suitable residence was needed. New buildings were not always built: the thrifty kings sometimes expanded and converted an existing house, as is the case here. The interior met the taste of the prospective monarch with an oriental (sultan's) tent embedded in a living room. In addition, a seductive garden with its own hillock with fir trees - for the always melancholy Crown Princess Elisabeth, who comes from Bavaria and loves her homeland.
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Every pleasure garden, as the parks were called back then, was adorned with small gifts that were primarily intended to offer something to the eye - or as a destination for a short walk. Practical if you could then use it for a picnic or lunch, for example, which of course the servants were allowed to bring from the castle kitchen. However, the Friendship Temple invites you to a small tète à tète, because it is rather intimate.
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Neues Palais
King Friedrich II called it "fanfanery". What he meant was boasting, of course he didn't use this embarrassing German word. Above all, he wanted to impress his relatives. Thus, this castle also shines with 600 rooms and can definitely keep up with Buckingham Palace. Divided into "apartments", the royal relatives were given a kind of holiday home for their stay, with a reception room, music room, bedrooms and writing rooms. Some of the bathrooms are already in small adjoining cabinets. Kitchen was not needed for the gentlemen, housed far away in the so-called "common" buildings, French called "communs" because of the unavoidable kitchen stench. Which is why the food was mostly cold upon arrival. Later rulers also used the building for themselves, for example the last Kaiser Wilhelm II. Friedrich, on the other hand, enjoyed the distance to the "hunchbacked" relatives: the long avenue through the park to his small castle on the vineyard measures a proud 2 km.
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Who doesn't want to study in a castle? The Potsdam students are so lucky. Not quite, strictly speaking, the headquarters of this small but fine university is in the "Communs", the so-called "common" buildings of the New Palace. The servants were housed here, separated into palace servants, including the kitchen, and the palace guard, i.e. officers and soldiers. All connected with fabulous arcades that form a huge courtyard with the castle.
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Dampfmaschinenhaus
People were open to modernity and its advantages, such as the mechanical drive of an elevator in the New Palace for the somewhat weighty empress. Not so much its industrial look though. This was then rather romanticized hidden behind an oriental building, according to the latest fashion. Here in the form of a mosque with a minaret, as a chimney for the steam turbine that still produces electricity today.
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Neptune Grotto
No park without a grotto! The romantic infatuation of the 18th/19th In the late 19th century there was a thirst for these rather useless sights, apart from the refreshing water and the shady caves. But they were popular above all as a varied highlight and therefore a must for every pleasure garden of this time.
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Brandenburg Gate (Brandenburger Tor)
Potsdam also has a Brandenburg Gate! It's even kept in the same style, classicism, as its more famous and bigger brother in Berlin. As there, it is the gate from the direction of the city through which the elector rode west, i.e. to Brandenburg. We went through the Jägertor to hunt, to Nauen through the Nauener Tor ... and we'll be right there.
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Jagertor
In Berlin, the Elector rode through the Brandenburg Gate to his hunting grounds, the Tiergarten, a kind of private casket. In Potsdam you have two gates for it, one leads to Brandenburg, the other (back then) to the Walt with the beloved game.
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Nauen Gate
Probably the most imposing city gate in Potsdam, of the four surviving ones from each direction. Kept entirely in the medieval Romanesque style, it impresses with its sheer size compared to the rather stocky two- to three-story Potsdam buildings. Nice cafes and restaurants invite you to visit, especially on this square
Duration: 30 minutes
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Dutch Quarter
Even in the past, you had to do something if you wanted to have good skilled workers. That's how it was in the 17th century. The Dutch canal builders, who the Great Elector brought back from his exile as heir to the throne during the Thirty Years' War, were allowed to build their accommodation in the traditional Dutch style. This district in red clinker style impresses with an impression as if you were in Holland. This impression is rounded off with many small shops, whether crafts or antiques, as well as bars and cafes. Not just for tourists, Queen Beatrix also honored this quarter with a royal visit.
Duration: 15 minutes
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Potsdam's main street, now a busy pedestrian zone. But unlike many a failed version from the 70s, it impresses with the ensemble of beautiful town houses with small, individual shops to browse through or spoil yourself. The small department store with its original Art Nouveau glass roof is outstanding. However, many houses are still from the baroque period. In keeping with the spirit of the time, Potsdam's city center was also laid out in a strictly geometric manner, in quarrées through which you can drift to your heart's content.
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This castle was also blown up in the ominous times of early socialism, although the war-damaged building, a pearl of north-east German baroque, could definitely be rebuilt. For decades, a barren landscape of streets and trams tore apart this historic site. Today the City Palace, residence of the Prussian kings (before Friedrich II.), is once again in the center of the city. Outside with the baroque splendor, as well as the inner courtyard. Today, the rooms are also used by the supreme sovereign: the people of Brandenburg in the form of the state parliament.
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This church catches everyone's eye: it rises imposingly above the rather smaller and modest houses in the old town. The dome soars proudly towards the sky, surrounded by colonnades. Be sure to plan a visit.
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Museum Barberini
Like the city palace and today the garrison church, it had completely disappeared from the war-damaged Potsdam cityscape, which was later brought to a socialist plan. This is now being carefully recreated, and this is mainly thanks to the patrons based in the city, such as Günter Jauch (the portal at the city palace) and the billionaire Hasso Plattner, owner of a world-famous software company. Is that why he fell in love with the completely non-digital art? Whatever the case, his large collection has found a worthy home in a former noble palace that has been completely rebuilt.
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Schloss Cecilienhof
It is a bit away from the palaces of Sanssouci Park and is therefore easily overlooked: Cecilienhof Palace. Built for the Crown Prince and his wife, Cecilie von Braunschweig, it is the youngest of the Prussian palaces. The marriage of the two finally took place in 1913, shortly before the outbreak of the First World War. Actually an already modern house with central heating, bathrooms and every comfort, yet it hides behind the idyllic view of an English country house, as was the fashion of the time. There's even a ship's cabin look room inside, as the princess was so fond of sea voyages. But most visitors are interested in the more recent past: the palace as the site of the 1945 Potsdam victors' conference. Here Stalin, Truman, and Churchill wear each other. The conference room is still furnished as it was then, as are the outdoor facilities.
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Belvedere Castle on the Pfingstberg
A beautiful panoramic structure on every hill, that was the goal of the royal builders of the palaces and gardens of Potsdam. Admittedly, often enough to look up at, as an addition and eye-catcher to the gardens themselves, than to enjoy the view from up there. Who has the time and is it worth the arduous ascent (back then)? Decide for yourself!
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These immigrants should also be able to live comfortably in the usual high-rise log houses. However, they did not come to faraway Prussia entirely voluntarily: their absolutist rulers had given each other gifts. Once upon a time, an amber room was given away from Berlin to Tsar Alexander, who thanked the soldier king Friedrich Wilhelm I with a series of "Tall Guys". Here, however, it is said to have been a Russian choir that embellished the wedding celebration of the Russian princess with its singing should. Descendants are said to still live there today.
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Babelsberg Castle
A highlight on every Potsdam tour. This castle, built entirely in the English style with many battlements and turrets, was a new building for the then Prussian crown prince and his wife Augusta. He later went down in history as Kaiser Wilhelm II. Even in his old age, he climbed the beautiful medieval tower (a copy of the Eschenheim Tower in Frankfurt/Main) with his study and a great view of Potsdam's palace landscape every day.
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Glienicke Bridge
A bridge that breathes history but also action. It was closed for 40 years as the border between West Berlin and the GDR. But there were fabled, covert, cloak-and-dagger exchanges of spy agents and prisoners between the US and the Soviet Union. A material that also fired the imagination of Hollywood, which is why this bridge has already served as an authentic film backdrop.
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Schloss Glienicke
Actually located on the Berlin side, this palace is a sight that is difficult to miss on the way to and from Potsdam. The park is located directly on the federal highway 1, the former Reichsstraße 1 from Königsberg to Aachen. The main focus is the pretty patio in the optics of a roundabout, located directly at the bridge and the transition from Tiefer See to Griebnitzsee. Here the Crown Prince's brother, Carl, let his gaze wander across the lake to Potsdam. On the other side is the beautiful New Garden with the Marble Palace. Everything was built in the Italian style, and there was a separate casino for entertainment.
