Outside Berlin, Berlin

Visit Eisenhüttenstadt!
It´s a 80 min train ride from Berlin and boasts a lot:

thouroughly planned and designed, it´s the first socialistic town in Germany

here a short excerpt from my Eisenhüttenstadt page:
"Architecturally , the style of "Nationale Bautradition" dominated the build-up of the living areas. Typical for these residental areas are passages between the houses ornated with columns, pilasters or cornices. The facades are decorated with oriels and ornamental fences or in other places with sgraffitos. The courtyards are laid out as small parks..."

more info here:

http://www.virtualtourist.com/m/4dd91/102ab/

Many Berlin tourists want to take e trip to the small towns or villages in the Brandenburg area around the big city Berlin. Most of them go to Potsdam. If you want to see some medieval walls, towers, a castle and a huge old church, take a trip to Beeskow (and read my Beeskow - page).

Visit the picturesque palaces and gardens in Potsdam.

Potsdam can easily be reached by train or subway (U-Bahn) with a so-called ABC ticket.

We were here January 2009, just after some snow and walked through the park and the village most of the day. Because of the cold, we decided to take a tour in palace Sanssouci, which turned out to be a total rip-off.

The tour was 8 euros for just 30 minutes with an audio-guide. There were way too many people in our group which made it impossible to walk around the small rooms and have a good look at everything. So, just admire the outside and spend your money on some Bratwurst and Gluhwein!

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Frederick the Great had no great love for his capital city (but then Berliners had no great love for him) and so, in 1744, he commissioned Georg von Knobelsdorff to build him a residence where he and his wife could live 'without cares - sans soucci'. Incredibly, the palace was completed within the year (although the layout of the parklands took another 5 years - and even then, 'officially' they took much longer as additions and changes were made for the next 130 years).

Sans Soucci is a surprisingly modest royal palace - one storey Baroque, topped by an oxidised green dome and ornamental statues. The interior is anything but modest - a Rococco feast of gilt, mirrors, curlicures and scrolls, marble, lacquerwork and more. The palace itself only contained 13 rooms under Frederick - the west wing (also of 13 rooms) was not added until 1840.

Frederick loved the palace so much he was determined to die and be buried at Sans Soucci (even to the point of working on the design of his tomb in the evenings). He eventually got his way, but not until 1991 and post re-unification of Germany. In the first instance, he was buried at the Garnisonkirche in Potsdam (1786), exumed in 1944 and taken to Schloss Hohenzollern in Swabia for safe-keeping, but eventually returned to Sans Soucci in 1991.

Maybe not an undiscovered place but a masterpiece of nazi architecture. You'll hardly believe this is an airport, it could host any sort of business. Many airports tend to look the same - Tempelhof Berlin is outstanding.

Potsdam is not just a suburb of Berlin, but a major city in its own right. In former times it was the summer residence of Friedrich the Great, whose palace and park "Sanssouci" are still major tourist attractions. Potsdam is now the capital of the Land of Brandenburg.

The Adult Education Center in Potsdam is named after Albert Einstein, who had numerous connections to this city. There has been an "Einstein Tower" in Potsdam since 1921, and an "Einstein Institute" since 1924. Einstein himself had a summer house in Caputh, near Potsdam, starting in 1929.

Gedenkstätte und Museum Sachsenhausen, the former KL Sachsenhausen . A concentrationkamp near Oranienburg. A very chilling place certainly when i was there when it had realy frozen. Its a big open space surrounded by fences. So not much left to look at but knowing the stories from tv and my studies etc makes you feel the atmosphere and one can´t even start to imagine how it must have been.
There is though an exhibition in one of the old baracks. The glas container filled with hair certainly made my hairs rise. A must see for everyone who wants to know about WW2.

If you like to get out of Berlin take one of the S Bahn trains and go to Potsdam. Its an hour drive. Potsdam has one of the most beautiful parks I`ve been. Its just nice to walk around there. Nice little bars, restaurants, lakes around Potsdam and very laid back. If you go up north there are all the Berlin lakes and its great in the summer. If people are interested this area is Brandenburg and they`ve got good tourist informations.