Germany
Potsdam
Potsdam: Prussian Palaces on the Havel
Potsdam was planned as a landscape as much as a city, with palaces, gardens and lakes set out to be seen together, and three quarters of it is still green space. Park Sanssouci is free to walk in, but each palace charges admission and keeps its own opening days, so check before you go.
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Good to know
Arriving in Potsdam
River ships call at Potsdam on the Havel, a tributary of the Elbe, downstream of Berlin. Your line will tell you where the ship moors, and Potsdam Hauptbahnhof, the main station, is the hub for the city's trams and buses and for trains to Berlin.
- About 20 lakes lie within the city limits.
- The palaces and parks of Potsdam and Berlin were listed by UNESCO in 1990, and the protected area was enlarged in 1992 and 1999.
- Potsdam is the capital of the state of Brandenburg.
- Potsdam is part of the Berlin and Brandenburg transport network, and it lies in Berlin's fare zone C, so a Berlin ticket for zones ABC or BC is also valid here.
Potsdam on Your Own
An independent day in Potsdam means choosing between the old center on foot and the palace parks by bus or tram. Park Sanssouci is one choice; the old market square and the Dutch Quarter, both on foot, are the other.
- The old center: The Alter Markt, the old market square, is the historic heart of the city, with St. Nicholas Church and the City Palace beside it. The Neuer Markt nearby is an 18th-century market square that has survived.
- The Dutch Quarter: Johann Boumann built this quarter of 134 red-brick houses in four blocks in the 18th century to attract Dutch craftsmen.
- Sanssouci by bus: Bus 695, the palace line, runs from the main station past Sanssouci Palace, the Orangery and the New Palace.
- The Russian Colony: The Alexandrowka houses, built in Russian style for Russian settlers, are part of the World Heritage Site; trams 92 and 96 stop at Puschkinallee nearby.
- Glienicke Bridge: The bridge over the Havel to Berlin, completed in 1907, was used during the Cold War by the Americans and the Soviets to exchange captured spies, the first time in 1962.
- Getting back on time: All-aboard is usually about 30 minutes before sailing, and your ship posts the exact time. A ship will not wait for passengers touring on their own.
Getting Around
Trams and buses cover Potsdam well, and most sights have a stop of their own. Tickets are sold from machines on every tram and bus, but the machines are little help in choosing the right ticket, so ask at the main station if you are unsure.
- Potsdam's own fare zones run from A in the center to C in the outer area, and they are not the same as Berlin's zones.
- Trams 92 and 96 run from the main station through the center to the Dutch Quarter and the Russian Colony.
- The S-Bahn line S7 and the regional train RE1 link Potsdam with central Berlin.
- Cycling is allowed in the New Garden but only on some paths in Sanssouci Park.
Tipping in Germany
Germany uses the euro. Tips are commonplace in restaurants, bars and taxis but not mandatory, and rounding up the bill is a common way to leave one.
- Restaurants: Customers often round the bill up to a convenient figure.
- Fast food: Tipping is not the custom at fast-food restaurants.
Palaces, Parks and Film
Potsdam's palaces and parks, built between 1730 and 1916 for Prussian kings who wanted to get away from Berlin, are protected for the unity of their landscape. In the 20th century the Babelsberg district became one of the homes of German cinema.
- Sanssouci, French for "without worries", was built for Frederick the Great as a summer palace on top of a terraced vineyard. It has just ten main rooms, and Frederick called it his little vineyard house.
- The New Palace, built about twenty years later at the west end of the park, was meant to show that Prussia's power was undiminished after the Seven Years' War.
- The New Garden on the Havel was laid out from 1787 for King Frederick William II, and the Marble Palace within it was the first Neoclassical palace in Brandenburg.
- Babelsberg's film studio, founded in 1912, is the oldest large-scale film studio in the world, and Potsdam joined UNESCO's network of Cities of Film in 2019.
- After the Edict of Potsdam of 1685, the town's religious freedom drew settlers from France, Russia, the Netherlands and Bohemia.
A Brief History
Potsdam probably began as a Slavic settlement, became a Hohenzollern residence in the 17th century and was a second capital of Prussia and the German Empire until 1918. It was badly bombed in 1945, hosted the Potsdam Conference that summer, and spent the Cold War next to the Berlin Wall.
- 993: The place is first recorded as Poztupimi, when Emperor Otto III gave it to Quedlinburg Abbey. It received its town charter in 1345.
- 1660: Frederick William, the Great Elector of Brandenburg, chose Potsdam for his hunting residence.
- 1685: The Edict of Potsdam brought Huguenot settlers from France and sped up the town's recovery from the Thirty Years' War, in which it had lost nearly half its people.
- The 1740s: Frederick the Great had Sanssouci built by the architect Georg Wenzeslaus von Knobelsdorff.
- 1914: Emperor Wilhelm II signed the declaration of war in the New Palace.
- 1933: On 21 March, President Hindenburg and the new chancellor, Adolf Hitler, shook hands at the Garrison Church in a ceremony that became known as the Day of Potsdam.
- 1945: An Allied air raid on 14 April badly damaged the old town. From 17 July to 2 August, Truman, Stalin and Churchill, later replaced by Attlee, met at Cecilienhof Palace and decided how occupied Germany would be run.
- The divided years: Under East German rule many damaged historic buildings were demolished, and after the Berlin Wall was built Potsdam was cut off from West Berlin.
- 1990 and after: Germany was reunified, and the palaces and parks were added to the UNESCO World Heritage list. After reunification, Frederick the Great's body was brought back to Sanssouci and buried in a new tomb overlooking the gardens.
- To learn more ashore: The Haus der Brandenburgisch-Preußischen Geschichte, at Am Neuen Markt 9 on the Neuer Markt, is a museum of the history of Brandenburg and Prussia.
Potsdam with Children
With children, plan Potsdam around one park or one attraction rather than a palace marathon. Park Sanssouci has open space for younger children, while the film park and the tropical hall suit school-age children and teenagers.
- Younger children: Park Sanssouci has follies, terraced gardens and romantic ruins to explore between the palaces, and plenty of room to run.
- School age: The Biosphäre in the Volkspark is an indoor tropical garden with about 20,000 plants, a waterfall, a butterfly house and animals such as iguanas, geckos and frogs.
- Teenagers: Filmpark Babelsberg is a movie theme park beside the Babelsberg studios, where the first German Expressionist film was made.
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