Potsdam is the capital city of the German state Brandenburg, the area that surrounds Berlin. In about an hour you can whip over to Potsdam for a day or two from Berlin. Potsdam is a lovely old city with a beautiful old town area and interesting buildings. The city used to be the home to the Prussian kings and German Kaiser up until 1918. Today it’s home to plenty of research institutes and film productions.
Transport
Train
Potsdam is easily and cheaply accessed from central Berlin by train. Take the S or U -Bahn to West Kreuz and then the S7 to Potsdam Hauptbahnhof, super easy and reasonably priced. The trip doesn’t take long and it feels like you’re quickly out of the city and into some rolling hills and nature. Costs about €6 each and takes 30mins from West Kreuz to Potsdam.
Sights
Gliennicker Brücke
If you’ve seen Tom Hanks’ 2015 movie Bridge of Spies you might know of this bridge. The Glienicke Bridge was an important bridge during the Cold War as this portion of the Havel river was the border between East Germany to West Berlin. A frontier between Soviet occupation and the Western world. Exchanges of captured spies were made on this bridge, and so it became the Bridge of Spies. An interesting place to visit.
Here, Germany and Europe were divided until the 10th of November 1989 at 6pm
Schloss Babelsberg
A lovely castle on a hill, surrounded by beautiful gardens and it’s reasonably quiet tourist-wise. A great spot for a wander and a picnic.
Old Town
Lovely old buildings, ice creams and coffees, a lovely shopping and eating street in the old town. There is also another gate here, funnily enough, it’s another Brandenburg Gate.
We managed to walk our way around all these sights. From the Hauptbahnhof, we made our way towards Berliner Strasse and down to Gliennicke Bridge. After crossing the bridge we walked through Klein Glienicke, crossing the river again towards Babelsberg Castle before looping back around to the old town. A great day’s walk and great sights along the way.
Potsdam is a great getaway from the crazy life in Berlin. Definitely worth a visit for some more refined beauty.
2 Comments
Awesome again Ash – you need to get onto some travel outfit and get paid for your travel blogs!! They are interesting with the history, the photos and up to date info. We are really enjoying reading each of your blogs and checking out the beautiful photos 🙂 Well done chick…
Thanks Mum, I’m glad you enjoy them 🙂 as for getting paid, I’ll work on it 😉