Potsdam, the capital of Brandenburg, lies just beyond Berlin’s western border – from the centre of the German capital you can get here by S-Bahn in under an hour. The city is famous for the palaces and parks of the Prussian kings, which, together with the parks on the Berlin side of the Havel, are a UNESCO World Heritage Site. We have been here twice. In summer 2020 we spent a whole day in the centre of Potsdam and in Sanssouci Park – the video below is from that day. A year later we went to the very edge of Berlin, to the district of Wannsee, and from there walked through Glienicke Park and over the Moritzberg hill, along Lake Griebnitzsee, to Babelsberg Park.
Table of contents
- Potsdam in a day – the Old Market, the Dutch Quarter, Cecilienhof and Sanssouci
- Wannsee and Glienicke Park
- Moritzberg and a walk along the Griebnitzsee
- Babelsberg Park
- Practical information
Potsdam in a day – the Old Market, the Dutch Quarter, Cecilienhof and Sanssouci
On 17 July 2020 we explored the western part of Potsdam. We started at the Old Market (Alter Markt), dominated by the dome of St Nicholas’ Church, next to the rebuilt City Palace – today the seat of the Brandenburg state parliament. From there we walked across the New Market, past the Church of Saints Peter and Paul and the Nauen Gate, to the Dutch Quarter (Holländisches Viertel) with its distinctive red-brick houses.
Earlier, in September 2019, I was in Potsdam in sunny weather – some of the photos of the centre and the New Garden come from that visit.
In the New Garden (Neuer Garten) on the Heiliger See lake we saw the Gothic Library, the Orangery, the Marble Palace, the pyramid (a former ice house) and Cecilienhof Palace, where the Potsdam Conference took place in summer 1945. Then we went up to the Belvedere on the Pfingstberg hill, and on the way to Sanssouci we looked into the Church of St Alexander Nevsky and the Russian colony of Alexandrowka with its wooden houses.
Finally, Sanssouci Park – the summer residence of Frederick the Great. The park is huge: besides Sanssouci Palace itself with its vineyard terraces and the New Chambers (Neue Kammern), there are, among others, the New Palace (Neues Palais), the Antique Temple and the Temple of Friendship, the Pheasantry, Charlottenhof Palace, the Roman Baths, the Chinese House, the New Orangery with the Sicilian Garden and a historic windmill. We left the park through the Obelisk Gate, and the last stop of the day was Potsdam’s Brandenburg Gate – older than the one in Berlin. One visit is definitely not enough to see everything Potsdam has to offer – I show most of these places in the video.
3:39Wannsee and Glienicke Park
Living in Berlin, we had already seen quite a lot, but given the size of the city there is always something new to discover. In summer 2021 we went to the very edge of the capital – to the district of Wannsee, which lies between the lake of the same name and the Havel. Our first stop was the 19th-century Glienicke Palace park. A gate with golden griffins leads to the palace.
The park was laid out for Prince Carl of Prussia, and the palace and pavilions were remodelled by Karl Friedrich Schinkel. In front of the palace stands a fountain with golden lions (Löwenfontäne).
On the bank of the Havel stands the Casino – an Italian-style villa with long pergolas on both sides.
In a corner of the park, right next to the Glienicker Brücke bridge, stands a round pavilion with a colonnade – the Große Neugierde. During the Cold War the bridge itself connected West Berlin with East Germany, and spies were exchanged on it, hence its nickname, the “Bridge of Spies”.
Moritzberg and a walk along the Griebnitzsee
From Glienicke Park we climbed the modest summit of the Moritzberg, and then walked along Lake Griebnitzsee, through which the border between Berlin and Potsdam runs. On the way we passed canals and narrow channels between the lakes with boats sailing along them.
Babelsberg Park
At the end we reached Babelsberg Park, already on the Potsdam side – beautiful and full of things to see. Its heart is the neo-Gothic Babelsberg Palace, the summer residence of Prince William, later Emperor William I, built in the style of English Tudor Gothic. With its towers and battlements it looks more like a castle than a palace.
More buildings are scattered around the park. On a hill stands the Gerichtslaube – a Gothic red-brick arcade that in the Middle Ages was part of Berlin’s town hall and served as a court, and in the 19th century was moved to Babelsberg.
On the bank of the Havel stands the Small Palace (Kleines Schloss), and deeper in the park – the brick Flatow Tower (Flatowturm) with a viewing terrace.
Rising by the water is also the steam engine house – a castle-style building with a tall tower-shaped chimney that pumped water from the Havel to the park’s fountains. And a flight of steps guarded by statues of halberdiers leads to a neo-Gothic monument with the figure of an angel.
Practical information
- Getting there – from central Berlin to Potsdam you can take the S7 S-Bahn line (stations include Wannsee, Griebnitzsee, Babelsberg and Potsdam Hauptbahnhof) or regional trains. A Berlin ABC zone ticket is enough – Potsdam is in zone C.
- Admission – the parks (Sanssouci, the New Garden, Glienicke, Babelsberg) are free; you pay to visit the palace interiors.
- How much time – for central Potsdam, the New Garden and Sanssouci a whole day is the minimum, and even then you won’t see everything. The walk from Wannsee through Glienicke Park to Babelsberg is another day.
- More from Berlin – following the Berlin Wall and the Festival of Lights.
