In Potsdam

betaben

681 Posts

July 13 2009 21:02 GMT

I'm stuck for a day while my car gets repairs, so I'll try to get this written up. Next place, Potsdam, Germany. For those who were looking forward to me getting high, going clubbing, pulling, getting laid and hitting a police man, look away now. This is a boring journey around a historic town, where one of the palaces exploded. True apart for the explosion thing.
On the way to potsdam, I had to waste a day getting a new wheel, so I made a detour across the netherlands north sea barrier, which I enjoyed, so here's a picture.

So, Potsdam: where hindenburg reliquished power to Hitler, and where the allied powers agreed to disagree after Hitler, Potsdam has been the neverland park of the German MVP for centuries. It's a bit bizarre to see a town centred around a disparate selection of palaces; it felt a bit like a themepark. Some of the palaces which would be the focal piece in a smaller town end up seemingly being forgotten in favour of the more grand buildings, a once popular themepark ride, now overshadowed by new rollercoasters and tucked away in a corner. You can walk north and find a huge palace just off a housing estate with no one visiting it.
Anyway, essentially, this guy, Fredrick Elector of Brandenburg, decided to live in this village on the edge of some lakes in 1660, and it's been a posh place since.

In 1685, Louis 14th of France decided that actually, all the Hugenots that were originally allowed to be alive in France were now to be dead. Fredrick, to piss off King Louis, decided to declare his own edict, the Edict of Potsdam, which said that they could all come to Potsdam where it was ok for them to live. Actually, it said that anyone could live there and believe anything they wanted, so given that there were tons of people dying over the continent, they all came to potsdam, giving it a big economy boost.
The upshot in pictures is that there are a bunch of out-of-place buildings in Potsdam, including a Dutch quarter (which I quite liked):

a bunch of Russian traditional houses:

and a weird pink synagogue:

(Although they weren't all built at the same time)
Potsdam really started to be posh when Fredrick the Great, the first Fred's large nephew, decided to build a bunch of palaces there. The most famous, sanssouci, is "the most important work of Northern German rococo" which basically means it is full of over the top (but very old) gold-plated floral-like designs whit a kind of crescent moon in them now and then. The inside was kind-of impressive; I guess it was far more impressive at the time. It's a bit like a bungalow with a bunch of differently decorated guest rooms in it, each just a room with an alcove for a bed. The exterior is better, with a bunch of terraces in front of the palace, each filled with grape vines and (I think) orange trees. It's kinda become the symbol of Potsdam.

A big deal is made of Voltaire visiting sanssouci for a coulple of years, and some of the tourist shops old town kinda make out that voltaire was Fred's best mate; however, it seems that Voltaire was a bit mouthy and got arrested or exiled from most places he was invited to, this being no exception.
Grape vines are all over the park on the different palaces, especially the Orangery palace, which used to be an olive grove and looks a bit boxy:

and, I think, covering the walkways (although I'm no botanist.)

Although I had noticed there were statues and busts everywhere, it first hit home that there was a statue fetish going on when I got to the new Palace in front of the university.

it seems that if there was a space to put a statue, they would put one there, a bit like the toilet sketch from not the nine o'clock news, except with statues instead of toilets.

Still, quite impressive palace. I took a slightly weird route through Potsdam:

so about now, my legs started hurt, so I was a bit disappointed by most of the places I went after that. There are some mock-roman baths which seemed a bit crap as I went past them, and a Chinese-style palace which looked to be a round pergoda type affair surrounded by slightly tacky gold plated characatures of chinese men and women.

Eventually I got to the site of more recent events, the english-style palace was the location of the potsdam conference where the allies gloated together after WW2. It wouldn't really be special if that had not happened.

It is perhaps fit that the agreements made in Potsdam which dictated it would be under Soviet control can seemingly be seen in the buildings just outside the palacial-shugared center.

MuffiN

Korea (North)201 Posts

July 13 2009 22:20 GMT

wtf@ last picture, Alien

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