Potsdam, 3rd June 25

 Hi all,

We took the excellent S Bahn a short 40 minutes to the former East German town of Potsdam. This town has around 180,000 residents, however the public transport is streets ahead of Hobart - not many cars in the city centre as PT is the preferred mode due to the interconnected train, bus and tram network. Whilst the town got a fair pasting by Allied bombers in the war, it has been restored beautifully.

The town was a favourite of the 18th Century Prussian King Frederick III, and he managed to leave his mark. Firstly with his summer palace, Schloss Sanssouci, just out of town by bus.

Not quite Versailles, but a good attempt, although the outside could do with a bit of reno. The gardens are expansive and beautiful, and the inside with its many decorative rooms is well worth the visit.


We bused back to town and explored the town. Frederick left his mark again when the ordered the construction of houses to encourage Dutch artisans to work on his projects - the result a very Amsterdam feel in some parts of the town.


Of course, like all German towns it has great open spaces and huge public buildings to admire.

The town is a delight to just stroll around in, of course we managed to find a beautiful spot for lunch in a French/German restaurant, Mosel Riesling and Coq au Vin was a great choice for both of us.

We had a very relaxed day out and travelled back to do some supermarket top up and have a late afternoon siesta.

More exploring in Berlin tomorrow I expect - all our love from the travellers ❤️⛪️🚊🚇🧳🏰


 

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Getting Ready for our next European Adventure

Image
 Hi all Only another month before we head off to Europe again! This trip we won’t visit Italy, much to Norm’s continued disappointment about the “we can’t go to Italy every year” rule! However, that will be balanced out with the fact that all of our trip this year will be “North of the Rhine” and as we know Dr Felicity, the Romans never made their presence felt there! So, while much appreciated in past trips - no Roman ruins this time Norm. Still, there will be plenty of Cathedrals to fill in the void. So this year we plan to start our journey in Munich, then a revisit to Vienna and Prague before our first visit to Poland. Thanks to the fact that Qantas still has some economy frequent flyer flights available, in contrast to the hen’s teeth business class, Holly will be joining us for the first two weeks of the trip.  Felicity and Norm are looking forward to trying Finnair business class for the first time, another swipe at the ridiculous Qantas fare prices and our failure to f...
Read more

First day in Munich - 29 April 25

Image
 Hi all After an early morning (6am) flight from Hobart we caught our Qantas/Finnair flight to Munich via Singapore and Helsinki. The somewhat grumpy check-in person at Qantas informed us we were taking a big risk booking a seperate flight from Hobart to Melbourne, so she couldn’t book our bags all the way through. She said it wasn’t worth the risk and we should book with Qantas all the way next time - Norm said, “and pay the extra $8000 compared to Finnair”, she said she would - bugger that! Anyway, we had a smooth flight, albeit long, and arrived in our apartment just off old town Munich just before lunch. Public transport is a dream here - we bought a group ticket for all 3 of us (could have had up to 5 people) for all travel around greater Munich for the 5 days we are here for about $60 each. Caught the S ban into the city from the airport in about 35 minutes. We had a quick look around the local area ,Marienplatz, just to be sure we had landed in Germany! Beautiful as expected...
Read more

Munich day 2 - 30 April 25

Image
 Hi all After long day yesterday, where we picked up Holly in the late evening after her trip from Hobart, we thought we would have a lie in this morning. However, we all had a good post jet lag sleep and were up for a walk around the Munich Altstadt this beautiful sunny morning.  It was only a short walk from our apartment and it wasn’t long before we found a few churches to explore, once we had spent a few hours in the old king’s Residence (palace). There was plenty of opulence on display from the 15th to 19th century when the Bavarian princes (Electors) were in charge. This included the hall dedicated to their ancestors that Holly is starring at above. Normie made the sacrifice of a long narrow climb to the top of the St Peter’s church tower to get the picture in the top frame. Holly and Felicity stayed in the comfort of the church in the bottom right hand picture below. The walk was flat and the town is very easy to get around with some great, car free and pedestrian frien...
Read more