After another huge breakfast, even by my standards (eggs, fresh rolls, pastries, meats, lox, fresh squeezed orange juice or grapefruit juice, fresh strawberries, muesli), Konrad and our driver picked us up for a trip to Potsdam, a city just outside of the Berlin city limits. Before the Reunification, Potsdam lay just across the border from West Berlin into East Germany. The bridge that separated the two was the Glienicker Bridge, better known as the Bridge of Spies. This is where Gary Powers (the U-2, [not the rock band, the spy plane] pilot who was shot down by the Soviets and exchanged on this bridge.
Half of the bridge is one color green and the other half a
paler green.
This demarcation is where
the border was.
Today, we can straddle the border freely.
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| View from the Bridge of Spies |
On the way to our next stop in Potsdam, Sans Souci, we
passed areas with beautiful homes, an area that housed Russian soldiers (which
incidentally was only about 10 miles from the US troops stationed in Germany) fondly
known as the “Forbidden Zone”, a Russian village, and a functioning windmill
(probably the last one not in the Netherlands).
Sans Souci is the summer palace of Fredrick the Great, built
in 1745. It is atop the only hill in a
50 square mile area. The grounds are
stunning and has been made to look like a small Versailles. The interior was closed today, but we were
able to walk around the grounds. 2 added benefits. First, it was free today, and second, there
were minimal crowds, better for photos.
Frederick is buried on the grounds with his 12 dogs whom he
loved. You might take note that his wife
is not present in the family plot. Also
of interest are the potatoes on his grave.
He is also known as the potato king because he brought the potato to
Germany, and they do love their potatoes.
On our way out of town, we saw the “other” Brandenburger Tor
that was built slightly earlier than its younger brother in Berlin.
Before leaving Potsdam, we stopped for café und kuchen at
one of the oldest coffee shops in Germany.
This particular area was inhabited by Dutch immigrants and had a
distinctively Dutch look to it.
Konrad drove us back to the city center and said good-bye to
us. We strolled over to the Kaiser Wilhelm Memorial
Church which has been left as it looked after the war to remind the people of
Germany of the horrors of war. It had
been badly damaged during the bombing of Berlin and the fighting at the end of
the war.
This
was sadly also the site of last year’s terrorist attack that killed 84
people. A memorial continues behind the
church.
Next
we went to the department store KaDeWe, an enormous high end store, the Berlin
equivalent to Harrod’s in London. The
food court on the top floor was our goal for a late lunch. This is not your typical mall food
court. Options are a 3-star Michelin
restaurant, lobster restaurant, oysters, game, etc. We opted for fish, and had an outstanding
lunch complete with a great wine. We ran
into Katherina there who couldn’t stay, but arranged for us to have a tour of
her hotel.
Katherina’s
assistant greeted us at the hotel entrance and gave us a great tour. I
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| Lothar and Jeri in th Hotel Roma Lobby |
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| Lothar and his harem |
At
this point, we had to head back to Iwona and Lothar’s to do laundry and
pack. Early morning train tomorrow. We have to leave the house at 5:30.
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