Previous night food update: Oh my. The Prater Garten is a traditional German Beer garden only minutes from our apartment on foot. We had our first German beers of the trip (exquisite) and then had a meal which Marthese described as one of the best meals of her life. I felt sorry for her, because there was no way her “dumplings” (I think they were just ravioli) compared to my succulent Wiener Schnitzel. Outstanding meal.

Today looked to be potentially the only clear day of the week in Berlin, so we planned a day trip out to Potsdam, a city on the Berlin border that was a residence to old Prussian Kings and the German Kaiser until 1918. The weather did indeed hold out and ranged from chilly, to quite nice, to quite warm, then back to quite nice again. No rain in sight.

From the main station in Potsdam we walked through town on the way to the palace gardens. Potsdam seemed a bit well to do, fancy and potentially a tourist trap, but was not at all crowded and quite pleasant. An epic old cathedral stands beside an east-bloc era apartment in this weird melting pot of German history.

We snuck into Sanssouci Park a weird way and stumbled into a quiet and impressive church courtyard. Sanssouci Park is an enourmous park containing multiple palaces, most notably Sanssouci Palace itself which was built and inhabited by 18th century Prussian King Frederick the Great. Exploring the grand park grounds themselves reminded us of a less opulent Versailles, and there is no doubt the French icon was a huge influence on this park and its palaces (Frederick apparently spoke better French than he did German!).

Sanssouci Palace itself was beautiful, and despite a rather uninspiring audio guide, wandering the guest rooms and concert rooms while learning about Frederick the Great was a treat. This is an era of German/Prussian history that is mostly unknown to us and inspired Marthese to buy a book to learn more. Hidden around the corner from the palace is the “Picture Galley”, a custom built gallery for all the art that couldn’t fit in the palace. Easy to miss but wonderful to visit!

A 2km walk down a tree lined street (and via the weird but cool Chinese House that Frederick had built) is the New Palace, an enormous accompaniment to the Sanssouci Palace designed for more formalities and the capacity to house even more guests than the original palace. Despite there being conflicting information on how one can enter the New Palace (we frustratingly had to return to a ticket office to book a time to visit, something the gentleman who sold us our tickets neglected to tell us, and something that is not mentioned in any guidebooks) the interior is well worth the frustration. The “Marble Hall” with its balcony for musicians, elaborate marble floorings and gorgeous chandeliers was a jaw-dropping sight. Again, the audio guide was less than inspiring and left out fascinating details that were clearly on display. Marthese noticed a hammer and sickle and Russian graffiti behind the paintings in one of the rooms and had to find a tiny display text that told us the Russians had occupied the palace following WW2 and the graffiti read “Death to the German occupants”.  We wanted to know more, but alas, uninspiring audio guides.

An exhausting day, but a fun one. Now to rest our weary limbs. We’re aiming for a quieter one tomorrow. Let’s see how that goes.