More Potsdam

 

Some interesting things we saw…..At bus stops they tell you what buses are going to arrive and in how much time.  We saw this throughout Germany

   wouldn’t that be great at home?

We went to the palace called San Souci, or French for “No Worries”. 

   We took a tour of the inside of this palace.  Nice but small, only 15 rooms and each of the rooms was small.  After all, this was just a place to go in the summer, you know, to get away.  Since the king could not travel much, he brought Rome back home.  He had ruins of Rome copied in his garden.

  

That is what is in the far distance of the garden view.  The white on the left is a covering because they are fixing the fake ruins

The king wanted to be buried in San Souci, but he was buried in Berlin, but after the war, since he had to be moved several times to keep from being blown up, he was reburied here.  Near his burial you can see potatoes place.  The story about this is that the German people were starving and the potato had been introduced from the Americas, but no one would eat it because it grew underground and root vegetables were for animals.  So the kind put guards around his potato fields so the common folk would think it was very important to the king, and they snuck in and stole the potatoes and the rest is German Potato Salad.  So someone leaves potatoes on his grave all the time too thank him.

We next went to the New Palace.  Seems no son wants to live in his father’s palace and has to build his own.

   This is not bad for a new palace.  There are 2 ends that look the same.  We took lots of pictures of these buildings to then find out that this is the “kitchen” and the other palace is the sleeping quarters for the help.  

This is the palace…..  It is made out of brick, but the bricks you see are not real, they are painted on to look better.

Some lovely things.

  

   A normal neighborhood

 

  

The KGB had their headquarters in Potsdam.  It is where they held Gary Powers (sp) the U2 pilot, before he was exchanged for a
Russian spy, and where most decisions were made about the control of eastern Germany.  When we were driving around, whenever we saw a white washed wall, we were in the forbidden area of the KGB

 

  Very worthwhile side trip.