Saturday, October 31, 2009

Potsdam

Last week I went to Potsdam, a town near Berlin simply full to bursting with royal palaces, and a tour guide friend showed me and another friend around.
One 10eur ticket gets you a Tageskarte, a day ticket with access to most of the buildings scattered around the area.
We started with the Neue Palast, an imposing edifice that looks like it is made of bricks but is actually just painted to look like them:



The servant's quarters across the way were almost more impressive architecturally, funnily enough. Inside, they make you wear big felt slippers to protect the floors from your shoes. These are very fun to glide around in, if a bit slippy. We had to wear them in all the palaces. The first big room we entered was a shell grotto (mom you would have loved it). All the walls had shells cascading down them, the corners had sea monsters made out of shells, the marble floor was inlaid in shell shapes, and precious stones were laid into the wall in thick layers. It was pretty incredible. Unfortunately no pictures were allowed inside. There was a room with a Titian and a van Dyck among others but it was so poorly lit I could barely see them. Upstairs, we saw a huge marble ballroom with an inlaid floor.
Behind the palace a little ways, in the park, there is a small pavilion:

One of the Fredericks (I easily lost track of which was which) built it as a tribute to the friendship between him and his sister when she married and left his household. Teddy, are you paying attention? Hahaha.
Next we went to a much smaller palace for one of the princes. It was done in Italian style and had a lovely grape arbor round back, plus a cool sitting area built in such a way as to project one's voice to the house's porch. It was pretty neat. Inside, it was much more liveable and cozy than the larger palace. One guest room was decorated to look like the interior of a tent, which was a really cool effect.
We wandered the grounds and found the "Chinese" tea house:

decorated with laughably inaccurate golden figures, from which tourists apparently like to steal various appendages:

Along the way we also stopped at a small Roman-inspired building, with this cool flounder fountain outside:

Apparently one of the Fredericks was a bit chubby, and was nicknamed flounder. Instead of being offended, he embraced it. In fact, there were china sets in the small Italian palace with golden flounders on them!
Eventually we came to the Orangerie:

where we climbed to the top of the tower despite my companions' mild fears of heights. The climb involved a narrow spiral staircase which could only admit traffic flow in one direction, so there was a stoplight to tell you when people were coming down:

The view of the neighboring park and countryside was really something:

We also toured the interior--more impossibly ostentatious rooms and furniture.
Eventually we came to Sanssouci, perhaps the most famous of the palaces, built by Frederick the Great. The name means "without worries" in French, the principal language of Frederick, who apparently never cared much for German. His architect suggested that when the palace was finished, he would be able to live "sans souci." Frederick replied that as emperor, he could never live such. Apparently the phrase intrigued him, however, as he had it inscribed on the palace front, but with a comma between the two words. The comma is the exact center of the palace. To its left, under the word 'sans', were his living quarters, music room, and other sources of pleasure and distraction. To its right, under 'souci', his office, state rooms, and other things related to the business of being a leader. He is buried outside the palace, alongside his hunting dogs.
The palace:

and seen from the landscaped gardens in the park below:

Next we perused the picture gallery, the first building expressly for the display of art ever built in Europe. Many Renaissance masters were present. My favorite paintings were a van Dyck of Mary Magdalene in repentance and a lovely big Caravaggio. I think my tour guide friend was a bit astonished at how long his friend and I dwelt on the paintings!
We took a little break in downtown Potsdam and had some pastries and coffee. The town is adorable! It was much better restored than Berlin after the war.
Next we found ourselves at another palace, deceptively small from the outside, but with 100+ rooms, in English Tudor style. This is where the Potsdam conference happened at the end of WWII, and the portions open to the public are mostly devoted to that history. It was originally built as a family residence, however, and was really a charming building, if a bit incongruous.
Finally, we scooted across the park and just made the last tour at the marble palace, a smaller palace intended for royal children and their families. The highlights here were several beautiful and intricate parquet floors and a large secretary made to look like a mini palace with lots of secret drawers and compartments, as well as lovely views of the lake.
When we finished, it was 6ish and getting dark, and we wearily boarded the regional train for the crowded half hour ride back to Berlin.
All in all I'm glad I took the day off work to see it before the smaller palaces close for the winter!

Bis bald,
D.

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