Day 7: Potsdam

Four of us traveled out to Potsdam today. 

Potsdam is the capital (and largest city) in the Brandenburg state. It was about a 45 minute train ride from the S bahn station by our hotel.

With several impressive parks and palaces holding UNESCO World Heritage status, I was looking forward to seeing some beautiful areas.

I was not disappointed.

Our first stop was Nikolaikirche (St. Nicholas Church), which has been rebuilt several times through three centuries. 

It's impressive, copper dome is 77 meters  (which Google tells me is about 252 feet).

We also went by the Old Town Hall and walked by the Film Museum, which had impressive horse sculptures above its entrances.

We wanted to head to the Sounssuci Gardens, and ended up taking a very scenic, very long walk which didn't get us any close to the gardens but ended up giving us a great view of the city across water.

We eventually made it to the Sounssuci Gardens and Sanssuci Palace, which were both very impressive and reminded me of the extravagance of Versailles. 

We walked through a couple sections of the garden, including Neptune's Garden and the Great Fountain.

We went up to the Sanssuci Palace and were excited to see what the inside looked like, only to be informed that they were sold of out tickets for the day, so we had to content ourselves with examining the outside architecture. 

We walked by a windmill and another palace before deciding that we had walked enough for the day, so we headed back to Berlin, where we ended up going to a beer garden and a craft beer pub later that evening. 

(I ended up walking 9.69 miles yesterday, which is the new record for this trip so far).

I was surprised at some of the differences between Berlin and Potsdam. They're very close to each other and I heard they're considered a metropolitan area like Dallas and Fort Worth are back in Texas. 

Potsdam seemed much more laid back, though, and was filled with much more colorful buildings.

It was interesting that while essentially everyone in Berlin can speak some English, our lunch waiter in Potsdam didn't know any English. There were plenty of tour busses and guides, but even so, Potsdam must see a much smaller amount of Americans come through.


Heading off to tag photos on Facebook,
The Purple Writer