Endless palace grounds

Continuing from the previous post, from Potsdam's Luisenplatz I entered some castle grounds.

I initially thought that it would be easy to cover the palace grounds by foot, since the area was only about 2km+ in width. But…it was difficult, mostly because it was BORING! The places of interest were so far apart, that from one palace to another, it might take half an hour of walking amidst greenery. (you’ll see)

Let's go in!

and walk...

and walk...

That's Schloss Sanssouci! (Sanssouci Palace)

was curious about these green gates

the actual palace, at the top of the steps

looking back down (as luck would have it, the sky turned cloudy...)

behind the castle (seems like this is the entrance...I didn't pay for any entry into any castle :P )

nearby, there is a windmill

a horsecart! (yes, it's useful, so that we don't have to walk that much)

to the windmill

there are steps going up, but we need to pay to go up, so I didn't

Later, walking to the next destination, I was surprised to see that the horsecart uses the same road as cars! The poor cars had to wait for it to clop along slowly...

After walking around a bit, I think I sort of gave up seeing anything interesting nearby and decided to find public transport that would take me to another palace. I remember making a few snap decisions that probably cost me more time (and there weren’t many buses on a weekend), but in the end I reached Charlottenhof Palace.

view from the (tiny :P ) palace

the surroundings

not sure what's this nearby building

and the walk into endless greenery begins...

If I weren’t tracking my location using Google Maps, I think I would have gotten lost. But with Maps, I could assure myself that I was slowly approaching the New Palace…even though it was nowhere to be seen.

a photo that looks prettier, with the trees and the path

finally, something is seen!

From the timestamps on the photos, it seems that I took about ten minutes to get from Charlottenhof Palace to the New Palace. So I may have exaggerated a bit at the beginning of the post. Or maybe not…there might be routes that could take longer (or if I had gotten lost, for example)

it's still so far away...

unfortunately this view is against the setting sun, so the structure isn't clear

To its east, the New Palace. It's so huge!

I was so tired by the time (and bored), that I didn't even try to walk around the castle or see its entrance.

Between the two palaces, there weren’t a lot of people (or practically none). But at the New Palace, there were some groups of tourists, presumably those who went inside to visit the palace.

going out of the archway in that dark photo above, and looking back (New Palace in the background)

just another photo to show how big everything was

After that, I went to a bus stop across the road and waited for the bus to take me back to the train station, and then back to Berlin. I had had enough of palaces! (Seriously, New Palace doesn’t even look new :P )

The city of castles

The title may be a bit misleading… Potsdam isn’t really a city. More like a quaint old town? But the number of castles/palaces is astounding.

Anyway, it was its quaintness that attracted me to visit it, but in the end I didn’t like it that much…it wasn’t as pretty as I expected.

Potsdam is about an hour’s train ride away from Berlin, making it an easy day trip. With an all-zone Berlin public transport ticket, we can go all the way to Potsdam and even use the public transport there.

a square not too far away from the train station

inside the church in the said square

another angle

another church? (I don't really know and I don't care, it's not pretty enough :P )

the Dutch quarter; we can tell by the red brick buildings!

the small streets of the Dutch quarter

Nauener Tor, one of the gates

Augustiner in Potsdam!

See previous post about Augustiner here.

Saw a few French restaurants in Potsdam. They were more expensive than the other restaurants!

took a photo of this because, how often do you see black waving cats?

I had lunch in the Dutch quarter, in a small Dutch pancake restaurant called Poffertjes en Pannekoeken.

see all those Dutch clogs decorating the ceiling?

I can’t remember exactly what I ordered, but it was a pancake with apple, ham, and probably raisins. Quite filling, actually, because the pancake wasn’t exactly thin. And pretty yummy :)

zoom-in to see some ham and raisins

I’m not sure whether it was because it was a Saturday, but there were stalls lined up on a street.

The most notable were a Coffee Bike and a Coffee Whale. :P

It started to rain around this time, so I looked around for shelter…

Jagertor under the cloudy skies (it was already unimpressive, being so small :P )

after the skies cleared up a bit

Looking at Google Maps, this is Hegelallee. Jagertor is somewhere in the middle of it, and it leads right up to Brandenburger Tor (same name as the one in Berlin, but smaller).

Brandenburger Tor of Potsdam

The next two photos are the prettiest I have of Potsdam; because the skies had cleared, and the square (Luisenplatz) is pretty. I couldn't decide which one to post, so I decided to share both. :P

After that, I entered the maze...of palaces. But that will be for another post.