Berlin - Day 3

For our last day in Berlin we took a trip on the train to a city 15 miles outside of Berlin called Potsdam. Potsdam is a beautiful little town where the Kings of Prussia lived until 1918 (ie when the Prussian Empire fell). Potsdam is also where the Potsdam conference occurred immediately after the end of World War II in which the borders of countries were redrawn. Below is Potsdam's Brandenburg Gate, which has the same name as the gate in Berlin but not nearly the same historical relevance, it's still pretty though.

The area the Kings lived in is called, "Sanssouci" which is French for "without worries" and they named it well because I can't imagine anyone that lives here would have worries. The parks, lakes, and palaces are just beautiful. Fredrick the Great is the king who reigned during most of the construction but Dale and I actually found the grounds more impressive than the palaces.

Can you see the little duck in the water? Loved this reflection and the little ducky swimming around!

Here are Dale and I with the vineyard entrance to the actual sanssouci palace and below a close up image of the sanssouci main room from the outside. Wouldn't it be cool to have your own vineyard at your house? Yes please!

Below are several pictures I took while walking through the sanssouci palace. The amazing park/garden is free to enter but to go into one of the palaces cost 12 euro each and I had to pay 3 euro to take pictures so I'm sharing them here to "get my monies worth"! Below is the main hall in sanssouci.

Below is the library with wood covered walls, comfy chairs, pianos, leather bound books, and a beautiful view out the window. I want one.

Above is the room Frederick the Great composed music in and practiced playing instruments in as well. On the ceiling is a golden spiderweb that stretches down to the sides of the room and has various fruits and animals in it. That was pretty neat! And below was a surprising find for such and old castle, an Andy Warhol painting of Frederick the Great.

Next we wondered back in to town and stopped for Döners which we discovered are basically the same as Swedish kebabs or American gyros and we love all of them! 

Below is the view from where we ate lunch, not so bad huh!

We walked around Potsdam a little longer then hopped the train back towards our hotel. It was sunny and a warm-for-us 50 degrees or so F so we decided to spend the rest of the afternoon laying by the river near our hotel, just behind the East Side Gallery. Dale grabbed a beer and I grabbed some gelato and we were very happy to get some warm sun time. That's not something that has happened in Stockholm yet!

One of Dale's co-workers who was also going to the meeting flew in and we met up with him for dinner near our hotel and went for a beer after at Ständige Vertretung where we tried some of the delicious regional style of beer, Kölsch. I don't like the style Kölsch in the States but it tastes different here and I very much liked it!

One last thing about our trip to Berlin, there were people walking around with these portable grills selling sausages like in the picture above. I thought that was pretty cool! But not a job I would ever want to do. So, that sums up our trip to Berlin. Have you ever been to Berlin? What did you like best? What would you want to see if you haven't been? If we ever go back, I'd like to go dancing, I hear nightlife in Berlin is great! And I really liked the food so I would definitely enjoy trying more of that, yummy!
Love Always,
Matilda