Day 5 – 5/25/2022 – On to the Ship

We were up early today – luggage out in the hall by 06:00, breakfast at 7:30, on the bus by 8:30.

On the way to breakfast I had to get this photo of Steve:

The lighting’s bad, but this is a cigarette vending machine. It came up in discussion the other evening that we can’t remember seeing one of these

So…we got on the bus and our tour guide, Loca, talked us over to Potsdam.

We arrived by crossing the famous ‘bridge of spies’ – the bridge connnecting West Berlin with Potsdam (in east Germany). This is the bridge where spies (including U2 pilot Gary Powers) were exchanged during the Cold War.

Our first stop was the palace of San Sochi (No Worries). The palace was built by Emperor Friedrick the Great in the mid 18th century as a (mostly) private getaway. It is a stunning example of the over-exuberance of the Rococo style.

Picture gallery – the concept of ‘drips with gold’ was fully on display here.

Notice the gold spider web in the ceiling

Of course there had to be a Chinese room

Even the ‘nature room’ dripped with the Rococo style

The style carried over to the outside where teams of caryatids support the roof.

In contrast to all this ornamentation, Fredirck’s grave is almost unmarked.

While not sure where the practice of leaving a potato on his grave originated, there is speculation that it relates to Fredrick’s efforts to get farmers to eat potatoes for their nourishment. The stones in the upper part of the picture are for his only true friends – his dogs.

Part of the San Souchi experience is a tour of the gardens. The park is massive with several styles of garden. Here are a couple.

Circling the pool at the bottom of the steps are a dozen marble statues. 4 of them represent earth, air, fire, and water

This is he ‘summer garden’ Gardeners are just in the process of bringing out and planting the summer plants.

The Summer Garden is surrounded by a beautiful, but more importantly a cooling, arbor.

Fredrick was particularly fond of cherries. His garden included a large cherry orchard. Note how some of the trees have been trained (no, these are not grapes).

Thru the centuries various means have been used to provide water for the park’s water features. Including a windmill. But not this windmill. This is a 19th century reconstruction.

The next stop was the Cecilienhof.

This palace was built in the early 20th century in the form of an English Hunting lodge for Crown Prince Wilhelm and his wife Cecilie. We were too many people to go inside, but our guide led us on a tour around the building while talking about its history and the Potsdam conference of 1945 (where Stalin, Truman, Churchill (and later Atley) divided up control of Germany after the end of the war).

Because Potsdam at that time was under the control of the Russians, Stalin was the host of the conference. The octagonal room on the ground floor is Stalin’s office.

These windows look out from ‘the room where it happened’.

Following our tour of the Cecilienhof the bus took us downtown and dropped us at the ‘pedestrian center’ where we wandered a bit before deciding on a likely looking Italian restaurant – wonderful pasta, al fresco, a bit of rain (but nothing to worry too much about)

And a group of performers raising funds for Ukraine

Back on the bus it was time to transfer to the ship. The drive was 1.5 hours. We slept almost the entire way.

Arriving at the ship we were greeted by the captain, senior officers, waiters, kitchen staff, housekeeping staff. We checked in at the front desk, found our room, unpacked and presented ourselves in the lounge for a ‘welcome snack’, crew introduction, toast with the captain, port talk for tomorrow, and covid safety lecture. Then it was dinner time.

Following dinner we returned to our room to try to stay awake long enough to work on the blog (a hopeless venture) and sleep.

Tomorrow is Wittenberg.

Til then, TTFN