Friday, June 22, 2012

To Potsdam June 19

 

We are getting smarter the more we travel.  We took a train from Berlin to Potsdam without issue.  We even took a tour, not an on/off bus, that took us around for 3 hours with a guide.  We learned that we didn’t solve everything by taking a guided tour.  We still need to ask “Where does the tour end?”  At the end of this tour, we entered the San Souci Palace and took a handset tour of the 15 room palace.  From there we had to make our own way back to the train station.  We chose to walk and had a great, if tiring time.

Potsdam is a city of gates.  Old city gates that were not used to keep the enemy out, but to keep the army in.  When you enlisted into the medieval army, you signed up for 40 years.  After a while, men wanted out, so a wall, with gates, was built.  They even said on the tour that they had experience with walls.  Boy.

Some gates:

 potsdam (4) (989x1024)   potsdam (114) (1024x768)

potsdam (120) (954x1024) 

and the Brandenburg Gate in Potsdam, older than the one in Berlin

                                                                                              potsdam (108) (1024x760)

Potsdam is a modern city, like all the others, and like the others, it has a great old town.

potsdam (26) (1024x766)  notice the old and new together

 

One of the places we visited was where the Potsdam Conference was held, and the Potsdam Accord was signed dividing  Germany into 4 sectors. 

potsdam (53) (1024x768)   Where Truman, and Stalin and Churchill met.

potsdam (44) Stitch (1024x307)  

In this palace is a kindergarten, the real use of the word…..a garden for children   OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA  where the bushes are shaped like animals.  Now you know where that word came from.

It turns out that a lot of things in Potsdam are not real.  This windmill is a reproduction.

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 This mosque isn’t one.  It was a steam plant and is now a brewpub.  potsdam (1) (1024x1008)

potsdam (95) (1024x768)   You may recognize the maidens on this porch from the Acropolis in Athens.  Later we will show you some fakes from Rome.

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