Potsdam (Berlin)

20 January – 3 February

We're here in Potsdam, which is on the outskirts of Berlin, for a couple of weeks.

We came via Munich and went out for dinner to the largest beer garden in the world at the Hirschgarten, the historic royal Deer Garden.

With seating (albeit outdoor) for over 8000 people, it's the largest beer garden in Europe.
It also has a number of lanes or rinks where they play Eisstockschießen, also known as Bavarian Curling, a traditional winter sport where players slide weighted "ice stocks" (with handles) towards a target ("Daube") on the ice, aiming to get closest. It's very similar to lawn bowls.

Next day we continued on the trains to Berlin. As planned, Emily met us on the way. The trains were really mucked around this day because of, we think (? German announcements) a health emergency somewhere. A few unscheduled changes, but we got there in the end, only about 90 minutes later than planned so no harm done. We pulled in to Berlin HBF and caught a local train and tram to Potsdam to our apartment. Very nice :)

We did a quick shop then went out to dinner.

The next day we headed out after breakfast and caught a bus towards where Tom lived at the University of Potsdam.

We hadn't seen where Tom spent his year when studying at the University of Potsdam, so it was great to be able to put visuals to his stories. Emily had visited him at the time those years ago so was able to give us a bit of a commentary :)

Over the next couple of days with Em, we headed into Berlin for a bit of a reccy of the city and a wander around.

We walked along a section of the East Side Gallery, went to Checkpoint Charlie, followed sections of the Berlin Wall, went up the retro panorama tower at Potsdamer Platz, visited the Bundestag,  before farewelling her on an evening train to the airport to get back to work :) 

We like the way the wall is mapped on the ground, but it doesn't indicate at all whether one is in the East or the west. Berlin locals may well know, but tourists like us have no real idea most of the time.

We wish there was an indication all over the city as to what part of the city you're in.

For example, east or west below?

We've seen a number of these wall indications all over Berlin. The wall went up exactly one week before I was born

Apparently, in the death zone, thousands of rabbits thrived on the strip of grass that no one trespassed on. There's a couple of hundred brass rabbits in one particular area near where we stayed last time we were in Berlin

East Side Gallery

East Side Gallery

We visited the Bundestag, known as the Reichstag prior to WWII. The tour took us through the buildings before heading to the dome above the chamber.

A highlight was seeing the graffiti left behind by the Russians who liberated the building. Rather than plastering over all the damaged walls, the British architect who won the competition to refurbish the building and make it fit for purpose chose to leave some of the less aggressive comments, only plastering over comments with a tone of (apparently) death to all Germans.

Just like Canberra's original vision of the people being able to walk across the roof of parliament house (parliament is not above the people), visitors can (at no cost, unlike Budapest!) go to the top of the building and ascend the clear dome that overlooks the chamber. There's a great (free) commentary that automatically chimes in as you pass key spots on the ramps. Brilliant.

Our time here overlaps with International Holocaust Remembrance Day. 

27 January commemorates the victims of the Nazi regime; this day was chosen as it is the day the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp was liberated. 

2026 is the 80th anniversary 

I (John) like the way Germany owns their past.

#WeRemember

 

It was great catching up with Em a few times this past month :)

After she had gone, we did some exploring around Potsdam, including a "free" city walk that left us a little disappointed :(

We did learn a few things, though...

Hundreds of years ago, Frederich the Great (the guy who built the palaces around Potsdam) was trying to attract workers to his city so he came up with the idea of building accommodation that would be attractive to the people he wanted.

He wanted Dutch workers to help with solving the drainage problem, so built housing that any Dutch workers would feel at home

Russian labour was needed, so at Puschkinallee there's a suburb where traditional wooded Russian houses were built to house any prospective immigrants.

And they built a (tiny) Russian Orthodox church for the community.

It's extraordinary to think that really significant buildings and gardens can be 
forgotten over time.
One of the Frederichs built the Belvedere Castle, with landscaped gardens and stunning views from the towers, on the highest hill in Potsdam. When the wall went up, it was mostly forgotten and fell into disrepair. It was closed, likely for winter given the foot thick sheets of ice we saw broken off in the pond, but clearly the renovation has been beautifully done. 

We managed to walk there along the snowy and icy paths without a fall :)

In Potsdam itself we tripped over a Russian monument/cemetery to soldiers who died after the war.

Many will be familiar with the Tom Hanks movie Bridge of Spies.

The bridge that is central to this movie is very real. Glienicker
Brücke (Bridge) is a tram ride away from our apartment and an interesting place to visit.

Here, Germany and Europe were divided until 6pm on November 10, 1989

The East German end of the bridge

"YOU ARE LEAVING THE AMERICAN SECTOR IN THE CENTER OF THE BRIDGE"

The retreating German troops blew up the bridge in 1945

Our accommodation is in the old town, in the pedestrian area of Potsdam, which is within walking distance of Sans Souci, King Friedreich's summer palace.

We went to Sans Souci park earlier with Emily, but we went back one snowy day for another slower walk through the park and a walk past the statues taken down from the New Palace while it undergoes renovation.

We paid for a tour of Sans Souci Palace. 

Honestly, the more places like this I go to, the more I understand why the French Revolution occurred. The opulence, the gulf between how the royalty and the people lived... I'm with them.

 

Friedreich was known as The Potato King because he (allegedly?) introduced the potato to Germany. People put potatoes on his grave.

We separated for one morning in Berlin.

While Robyn had a look around Potsdamer Plaza and  the Mall of Berlin, John went to the Stasi Museum, which is at the actual headquarters of where the Stasi offices were.

Really interesting to see the surveillance methods they used - spy cameras, listening devices inside doors. At its height, there were more than 90,000 Stasi employees, operating from 25 stations across Berlin and another 209 across the remainder of the GDR... it seems that everyone was spying on each other.

I've seen these in cartoons I think, but didn't realise they were a real thing!

This is a listening device inside a door. Every word this family uttered was recorded.

We did a walking tour of Berlin with a really good guide who contextualised everything really well. Instead of just telling you about something, he gave just the right amount of background. It was an icy, cold, windy day where we saw a few people slip on the ice (not us) but we had a great tour.

We finished up at the cafe near the East Side Gallery - again :)

He lead us to a statue we hadn't seen before.

This beautiful piece is of a mother holding her dead son.

We learnt that the artist lost her first son a week into WWI (conscripted, signed up as a medic) then lost her second son early in WWII.

Such a beautiful, quiet statue, and the way it's situated under an oculus that's open to the sky and lets the snow and rain in is quite stunning.

We also visited buildings significant to Hitler's speeches and rallies... eerie.

After another trip into Berlin one day to go to some markets, we came home to Potsdam separately so that John could catch the train to Teufelsberg, a man-made hill on the outskirts of Berlin.

In post war Berlin, there was a lot of rubble. In 1950, hundreds of trucks loaded with thousands of tons of rubble started dumping on the Teufelsberg hill daily until the mound was 120m above the surrounding plain. On top of this, in 1969 the Americans constructed a building complex from which they conduct round-the-clock surveillance activities – the Teufelsberg radar station. For the next 20 years, this building complex with its antennas is utilized by American and British intelligence services for reconnaissance work. 

After a couple of cold days and very cold nights, we thought that the lake at Wanassee would be interesting to visit. 

We caught a train to Babelsberg (not much there but found good coffee!) and then went further in to Wannasee. The frozen lake extended from one shore to the other. Out on the ice, lots of people ice skating and walking, and a few people ice-sailing.

Across the lake you could see various older mansions, including one that was where the Nazi party held a conference that would bring about the plan for the Final Solution. 

On our final day here, yesterday, we tried to go into Berlin one last time.

However, our plans were thwarted... between a national transport strike, trackwork and breakdowns, we made it half way there before three trains were cancelled on us. Its quite funny to hear the announcement only in German, see the expressions on everyone's faces and then they all get up and leave the train. We just followed like sheep.

Given the temperature on the platform at Charlottensburg was -9 with a "feels like" of -16, we called it a day and headed back home for a last local wander before going out to dinner around the corner.

Berlin > Heathrow > Edinburgh today.