Potsdam, Germany

We took a twenty minute train ride to Potsdam which is a city on the outskirts of Berlin. Potsdam was where the Prussian Kings resided as well as German Kaisers. Potsdam is south-west of Berlin and was just outside West Berlin after the construction of the Berlin Wall. The walling off of West Berlin not only isolated Potsdam from West Berlin, but also doubled commuting times to East Berlin. The Glienicke Bridge connected the city to West Berlin and was the scene of some Cold War exchanges of spies. After German reunification, Potsdam became the capital of the newly reestablished state of Brandenburg.
Although the city centre was heavenly bombed during World War II, Potsdam has plenty of beautiful buildings and a lively city centre with cafes that were packed with people enjoying a rare day of sunshine in late winter.
Park Sanssouci is an enormous park with an area of around 290 hectares and contains some beautiful palaces and walking through the park was even more breathtaking with the snow on the ground.

St. Nicholas Church

Start of the Glienicke Bridge - Divided into the 2 countries during the wall

Gothic Library in the Neuer Garten

Neuses Palace 

Neuses Palace

One of the 2 servants quarters for Neuses Palace

Renaissance style Orangerie

The New Chambers in Park Sanssouci

Chinese House in Park Sanssouci

Schloss Sasnssouci

Schloss Sasnssouci gardens

Schloss Sasnssouci

Park Sanssouci

Windmill Park Sanssouci

Potsdam's Brandenburg Gate

The old town centre

Nauener Gate

Street sculpture

Dutch Quarter

Charlottenburg Palace, Berlin

Charlottenburg Palace is the largest palace in Berlin and the only surviving royal residence in the city. The palace was built at the end of the 17th century and was greatly expanded during the 18th century. During the Second World War, the palace was badly damaged but has since been reconstructed in 1950. A lot of the rooms are quite bare as the furnishings were destroyed in the war and many of the pieces have come from the destroyed Berlin Palace which was torn down in 1950 but is being rebuilt and due to open in the next few years.
 The palace was commissioned by Sophie Charlotte, the wife of Friedrich III. The palace was designed in baroque style and consisted of one wing. In 1702 the palace was extended to include a second wing and the estate had buildings constructed such as an Orangerie, Mausoleum and the Belverdere which was used as a teahouse and viewing point for the gardens. The gardens were originally designed in Baroque style but later changed to a less informal English landscape style. After the Second World War, the centre of the garden was restored to the previous baroque style.

Charlottenburg Palace

Oak Gallery

Most of the furnishings came from the Berlin Palace

One of the many ceiling frescos

The over- the- top Porcelain  Cabinet 
room filled with Chinese and Japanese porcelain

Some of the Chinese and Japanese porcelain

The view from the Ballroom

Avenues of trees

Charlottenburg Palace from the Baroque garden

The vast gardens

Swans on the ice

One of the lakes- totally iced over

Baroque styled garden just showing through the snow

The Belverdere

Section of the English Landscape style garden (with a frozen lake )

The Mausoleum

Family crest on the gate

East Side Gallery, Berlin

The East Side Gallery in Berlin is a 1.3 km memorial for freedom. The Gallery consists of 105 paintings painted on a East Side section of the Berlin Wall. Artists from all over the world painted messages of freedom and hope after the fall of the Berlin Wall. Restoration work has been undertaken on many of the paintings due to graffiti and erosion and people wanting a souvenir piece of the wall. Unfortunately graffiti is still a huge problem which is such a shame. On the last day of our trip there was a large protest to save a section of the wall from being removed to make way for luxury apartments.

Here are a selection of the paintings -

The West Side of the Wall - filled with graffiti