Potsdam and Berlin

The goal for this caravan trip was to visit Berlin. We had a site booked near Potsdam and opted on our first day to walk to the Sanssouci Park and Summer Palace. This was built by King Frederick II (The Great) of Prussia in the 1700s. There are a number of palaces. If you visit and are in need of refreshment we discovered the student refectory behind the New Palace. It was the most inexpensive meal we have ever seen in Europe. Mind you we were the oldest diners but would like to think some students thought of us guest lecturers.

The gardens are over a kilometre long and have several palaces. The most photographed would be the Summer Palace and its terraced gardens. 

It is hard to appreciate the scale of these but each horizontal “tread” could easily fit a two way road.

Sanssouci is French meaning “without worries” and was geared to fun and wine. I did spend some time reflecting on whether it was vineyards that precipitated the idea of the terraces.

Some of the architectural details warranted a closer look. This is the most ornate street light I have seen. 

And then there were some wrought iron gates which were “to proclaim royalty”. This one was in the middle of the park. 

Most in King Frederick’s era spoke French rather than German (hence the name of the park). He suffered from gout and towards the end had difficulty breathing while lying down. He had this chair built, which reclined and was where he died in 1786 at the aged 74 – not a bad innings for those days.

The palace has two ends – the Eastern royal rooms and the visitor rooms. The royal rooms were very elaborate. The music room was spectacularly ornate and had one of the first “pianos” made. This may even have been played by Mozart who was thought to have visited the palace.

The adjoiining “Marble Hall” has its dome crowned by a cupola which, although oval, took the idea from the Pantheon in Rome visited earlier in this trip (September Rome blog).

At the far end of the grounds is the Church of Peace (completed in 1854). It was based upon Italian models and as with the palace suggest having time for reflection. (OK it was just a calm day…)

Helen spotted on the map that just behind the church was the Brandenburger Tor (or gate). We were rather pleased with this find given it was one item to be ticked off on this visit. Frederick built this based on a triumphal Roman arch. Each side is different as they had different architects.

What we did not realise until the following day was that this was not the gate we were looking for. The more famous Brandenburg gate is in Berlin (although in my defence I did say when I saw the Potsdam gate that it was smaller than I had imagined).

Berlin has a wonderful mixture of new and old buildings. A bridge over the river Spree gives a great foreground to the Jewish Synagogue completed in 1866.

We did a hop on hop off tour and boat trip to get a feel for the city and on the second day opted to walk starting at the famous Check Point Charlie. Here is Helen at the American Gate.

Nearby the line of the wall that divided East and West has been marked out in a line of double cobbles. There is the occasional plaque that gets photographed and in the background is a hoarding with a potted history of the wall and checkpoint.

Five minutes away a section of the wall has been left standing and the “Topographie of Terrors” open museum has been constructed at its base on the site. This was the site occupied by the Gestapo and SS during the Nazi regime until it was flattened by bombing at the end of the war. It was the principal instrument of repression and took us an hour to read only ¼ of the length of the display. Some of the history described here is very harrowing. It is nonetheless popular with over 1M visitors in 2014. At least it underpins why democracy (although far from perfect) is key to freedom and human rights including free speech.

The wall’s subsequent erection (dividing the Western part of Berlin occupied by the Allies from that occupied by Russia) also demonstrates that autocracies and communism both require violence and repression to survive. It is a lesson that some in Russia still do not appear to understand.

We then walked to the Brandenburg gate and on the way encountered and weaved our way through the Holocaust memorial. This was quite moving and its size helped with remembering how many were murdered. The paths between the blocks rolled up and down so you could quickly be lost from site. Indeed we became aware that there were many wondering the display but that most could not be seen. An interesting metaphor.

 

These constant reminders of an evil past should help in ensuring Europe does not repeat these mistakes. A friendly German couple we subsequently met said Germany had "lost a lot" and now generations were faced with rebuilding what was a wealthy country pre WWII.

Berlin has reconstructed many of its buildings following the war. Hence it is a mixture of originals (not many) rebuilds and new. One striking example of new was the Carillon built in 1987. It was silent when we visited but has 68 bells and the Carilloner sits in the middle of them with key board and foot pedals. Must be awesome to hear. It sits in the Tiergarten amongst pools and sculptures.

Also (relatively) modern was the first European traffic lights built just after WWII in Potsdamer Platz to overcome the horrendous traffic. (Although the one on display is a replica.)

And here is some real diversity; the 64 metre high Berlin Victory column opened n 1873 to celebrate victory in the Prussian/Danish war. This was followed by gas lights and in front is a very large Webber BBQ which apparently were developed here. A striking advertisement that you cannot fail to notice when driving round.

For our final day at Potsdam we went for a walk along the river to a pretty little village called Caputh which we accessed by this roped ferry. It was doing a roaring trade and was in a very picturesque setting.