Palace-Castle-Plaza-Court, It seems to describe today pretty well. Remember the post from two days ago titled Potsdam Is Nothing But Palaces. Well I got more confirmation of that today. My walk started off with a trip up a nearby hill, where up on top sits some old Roman Ruins, the mountain is called “Ruinenberg” (Ruins Mountain) I just wonder how they came up with such a creative name. Ok, well actually, they aren’t real ancient ruins, they were structures created in the mid 1700’s per the wishes of “Der Alte Fritz” (The Old Fritz) Frederick the Great. There are structures that resemble an old Roman ruined facade representing the side of a theater wall, a pyramid, a section of ionic columns, and some kind of round brick structure Nearly one years later a large medieval Norman Tower was put in place next to the theater wall. And there is a large (nasty and super thick and green with moss) tank of water to supply water for fountains and decorations in the middle of the fake ruins. After finding out these were fake ruins, I looked back, and it turns out the Roman Baths from a couple days ago also weren’t original roman baths or buildings. But instead built for  Frederick William IV in the early 1800’s. SO I made my way to my next stop, a neighborhood called Alexandrowka. (The ‘w’ should be pronunced like a ‘v’. For some reason the w and v in German both make the same v sound, and they don’t use w like in English.) Anyways, it’s a Russian settlement that had been set up after Germany and Russia banded together to defeat Napoleon, as the Tsar and German King became friends..

Next was another walk through the park… literally… Haha… towards a weird random pyramid on a stone platform with fake hieroglyphics on the side. Apparently it was an ice house. A very short distance north of that is the Cecilienehof. The site of the monumental Potsdam Conference, where “The Big Three” (President Truman, Josef Stalin, and Winston Churchill) met to discuss what should be done with Europe and Germany after the war.  and  Though something which I found quite humorous is that the election for new Prime Minster happened in England midway through the conference, and Winston Churchill lost, so he went back to England (though he actually left back for England ahead of time to be there for the election). He was replaced by new Prime Minister Clement Attlee who then went on to represent England in the talks, though he had already been there at the conference negotiating as he was Deputy Prime Minister at the time. The manor was really interesting and built in the old Tudor Style in the early 1900’s though construction was put on hold due to the breaker out of WW1. “Since the Marmorpalais, which had been the traditional Potsdam residence of the Hohenzollern crown prince, had become inadequate for current tastes, Emperor Wilhelm II ordered the establishment of a fund for constructing a new palace at Potsdam for his oldest son, Crown Prince Wilhelm (William) and his wife, Duchess Cecilie of Mecklenburg-Schwerin on 19 December 1912.” Much of the original furniture is still there, and the actual conference room where it all happened is really neat. The reason that Potsdam was chosen for the site of the talks, as they wanted to be in Berlin, is that Berlin was so heavily devastated there was just nowhere they could find that would be suitable for such a high-profile conference between world leaders. This court is owned by the same group that owns all the palaces in Potsdam, and this time I did decide to pay a little extra to be able to take pictures inside.

Glienicker Brücke! That was my next stop, though I unwittingly passed through an unofficial and optional nude beach on the banks of the Heiliger See (Lake), just southeast of the Hof and near the bridge. So there’s that… The Glienicker Brücke as the Bridge of Spies! Anyways I haven’t seen the movie Bridge of Spies, and I don’t know anything about it, except some spy exchanges went on there. Here’s Wikipedia on the subject matter: The Glienicke Bridge is a bridge across the Havel River in Germany, connecting the Wannsee district of Berlin with the Brandenburg capital Potsdam. It is named after nearby Glienicke Palace. The current bridge, the fourth on the site, was completed in 1907, although major reconstruction was necessary after it was damaged during World War II. During the Cold War, as this portion of the Havel River formed the border between West Berlin and East Germany, the bridge was used several times for the exchange of captured spies and thus became known as the Bridge of Spies.

Yea I crossed it to get to my next place: Schloß Babelsberg. Though the Dampfmaschinehaus (Steam Engine House) stood along the waters edge catching my eye, I have no idea what it was for. At first I thought it was the Babelsberg Palace, because it looks like a palace, just a lot smaller. Reviews seem to indicate it was for pumping water for various uses around the city of Potsdam, such as fountains. I then made my way to Schloß Babelsberg which was quite beautiful. “For over 50 years it was the summer residence of Prince William, later German Emperor William I and King of Prussia and his wife, Augusta of the House of Saxe-Weimar-Eisenach, German Empress and Queen of Prussia.” There is another small palace nearby quite literally called the “Kleines Schloß” (Little Palace) but I didn’t really think or care to go see… another one! Then I walked over to the Flatow Tower. (Remember, w pronounced like a v, so ‘Flatov Tower’ whichwas cool, reminded me a lot of the Eschenheimer Turm in Frankfirt. Now I just googled it, and one of the first things I read is that it actually was modelled after that tower. Wow! It served as a guest meeting area, and a place to store collectibles, though it only opens on weekends. The other palaces were all closed, and only open for special events, though I did catch a bride and possible groom in the garden of the Schloß Babelsberg.

That’s all I have to say about that.