It's the state capital of Brandenburg, and conveniently located right next to Berlin.
But although it is much older, you wouldn't guess it.
Today's Potsdam was built in the 17th and 18th centuries
as a royal residence and a garrison city.
This was a city for Prussian kings and soldiers.
Following reunification,
entire blocks of the city built during the Cold War period have been demolished
and, step by step, replaced by near-copies of pre-war architecture.
But Potsdam's location, right on the border with West Berlin,
meant that it was one of the few places western tourists could easily get to.
So the East German authorities did preserve a lot of value.
The earliest reference to Potsdam is found in a document written in the year 993,
and so in 2018 Potsdam officially celebrated its 1,025th anniversary.
It was a gift from Emperor Otto III to his aunt;
but by this time the Slavs had retaken the area,
and it was over 50 years before the Germans got it back.
It was a small backwater in the middle of nowhere
and almost completely wiped out in the Thirty Years War.
But in 1660, Prince Elector Frederick William chose it as his second residence,
and repopulated it with Huguenot refugees from France.
But it was a later Frederick William, a king of Prussia known as the "Soldier King",
who, in the early 18th century, transformed Potsdam into a garrison city,
a place for soldiers to live.
In two phases he extended the city northwards.
This part of the city is easily identifiable on a map with its grid layout.
Many of the houses were kept very simple, one design in particular being very common.
The House of the Golden Arm has been restored to its original appearance.
It belonged to a wood-carver, hence this piece of artwork
with the golden arm of the craftsman and the Prussian eagle.
Today, it houses an art gallery and a museum of ceramics.
More imposing buildings are usually more recent.
This emporium was originally built in 1905.
It was badly damaged by fire in 1995,
but could be rebuilt and reopened in time for its 100th anniversary.
A few traces of the city wall remain,
which was built not so much to keep invaders from entering,
but to keep deserters from leaving.
Guarding the city were members of a regiment
that had a minimum height requirement of 6 Prussian feet
and were nicknamed the "Potsdam giants" or the "tall guys".
The Nauen Gate in its present form was built later,
and is the earliest example of Gothic Revival architecture on the European continent.
The Brandenburg Gate, not to be confused with its more famous namesake in Berlin,
was undergoing renovation work while I was there,
but was built in the form of a triumphal arch
symbolizing Prussia's rise to power.
This is all the remains of the New City Gate.
There were originally two of these obelisks, one either side of the gate.
Nobody at the time could read hieroglyphs,
so these are just meaningless decorations.
In 1740, Frederick the Great became King of Prussia
and set about making Potsdam truly a city fit for a king.
The City Palace was extended and remodelled as his permanent residence.
This isn't it.
The original was badly damaged by World War Two bombs
and the rest demolished in 1960.
This is a copy completed in 2014
and now serving as the seat of the Brandenburg State Assembly.
The palace is at the Old Market,
which was completely remodelled under Frederick the Great
to look like an Italian piazza.
The Old City Hall, which was rebuilt immediately after the war, now houses the Potsdam Museum.
St Nicholas's Church was built relatively late, in the mid 19th century.
The stables nearby were in fact originally built as an orangery,
for growing citrus trees, but was repurposed in 1714.
The military-minded king converted part of the palace garden into a parade ground,
and the horses needed to be housed somewhere.
It's now the Film Museum.
Another stable nearby was built for royal coach-horses.
Its main entrance is on the New Market,
which looks much less spectacular than the Old Market,
but, spared the World War Two bombs,
it is one of the best-preserved Baroque plazas in Europe.
Only one building had to be reconstructed.
In the 17th century the Prince Elector issued a decree
allowing Huguenot refugees from France to settle in Potsdam.
These were Protestants who were persecuted by the Catholic authorities.
The French Quarter, where they were housed, was destroyed in the Second World War,
but the French Church was restored.
The red-brick houses next to the French Church — these ones rebuilt very recently —
in fact belonged to an extension to the Dutch Quarter.
This was a project started by King Frederick William I,
who was fascinated by Dutch culture and architecture
and hoped to attract Dutch craftsmen to the city.
This was only partially successful,
but Potsdam can now boast
the largest ensemble of Dutch architecture outside of the Netherlands.
His son, Frederick the Great, added some more buildings,
one of which had a very famous guest.
To drain the swamp on which the Dutch Quarter was built,
an artificial basin was constructed.
It was filled in a century later,
but the resulting plaza is used as a market place, a coach park,
and a Soviet war cemetary.
On the western side of the plaza is the Peter and Paul Church,
built in the architectural style known as eclecticism.
It takes design elements from different periods
and combines them into something new.
But you can't talk about Potsdam without mentioning Sanssouci.
The original castle was built in 1747 as a summer palace for Frederick the Great,
a place where he could relax and unwind —
hence the name, which is French for "carefree".
There are, by the way, many theories about the mysterious comma in the lettering on the façade.
It was originally much smaller,
but was massively extended 100 years later
and given a romantic view in the form of some fake ruins,
which hide a reservoir.
But the terraces are from the original construction
and vines and fig trees are still grown here.
Once the terracing was complete, work began on a huge park
that was to feature more buildings and palaces.
The Chinese House was completed in 1764,
giving us a fascinating insight
into how Europeans at the time saw Chinese culture.
Out to the west, the New Palace was built
not as a residence, but as a place to receive important visitors.
It was old-fashioned even when it was designed:
although Classicist architecture was taking off in Europe,
the king insisted in a Baroque design.
The building opposite, now used by the University of Potsdam,
housed the kitchens and other utilities.
Not until 1896 was a tunnel constructed to connect it with the palace itself.
The surprisingly small Charlottenhof Palace
was a gift from King Frederick William III to his son, also called Frederick William,
who had it very radically altered and remodelled
in a style inspired by Ancient Greek architecture.
The Roman Baths were built in 1840,
mainly because Frederick William, now King Frederick William IV,
had suddenly become obsessed with Italy.
This also explains the design of the Church of Peace and its associated buildings,
which take their inspiration from several early Christian churches in Rome.
Greatly influenced by Italian Renaissance architecture
was the Orangery Palance, completed in 1864.
It was to be part of a long processional route past Sanssouci
and the Dutch Windmill — another sign of the Royal Family's love of Holland —
but this project was never fully realized.
Sanssouci is not the only park Potsdam has to offer.
The New Garden was begun in 1787 by Frederick William II when he was still a crown prince.
The Gothic Library contained classics of French literature,
but also an equal number of German books.
In a break with Prussian tradition, he was keen to promote German literature.
In a particularly bizarre clash of cultures,
this English-style country garden has more Dutch houses,
behind which is an orangery with an Egyptian portal.
The pyramid was built over an ice-cellar.
In the winter, ice from the lake was deposited five metres below ground level
to help keep food fresh:
a crude but effective refrigerator.
The king also had the Marble Palace built in Neoclassical style.
This was a snub to his uncle, Frederick the Great,
who had built Sanssouci in the old-fashioned Baroque style.
Frederick William built his own, strikingly modern, private palace over two kilometres away.
At the northern end of the park is the much more recent Cecilienhof Palace,
built in 1917 in the style of an English Tudor manor house.
In 1945, it was where the leaders of the UK, the US and the USSR met
to discuss the way forward for Germany.
This was not good news for nearby residents.
Days after the Potsdam Conference, the people living here were ordered out of their homes.
This was to be the German headquarters of the KGB,
off limits to civilians, and it became known as the "Forbidden City".
This was its prison.
It's not known how many people were held here.
It was a short distance away from Alexandrovka,
a colony of twelve Russian dachas
built in 1827 for the twelve surviving members of a choir
consisting of former Russian prisoners of war.
This was at a time when Russia and Prussia had become allies against Napoleon.
But unlike the alliance against Hitler, this one didn't turn sour.
If you're under the impression that Potsdam is full of architecture from other countries,
you're quite correct.
This is another example, completed in 1843,
and it's not what it looks like.
The minaret is fake: it is in fact a chimney.
This is a pumping station,
built to power the fountains in Sanssouci Park.
Another of Potsdam's big projects is the reconstruction of the Garrison Church,
consecrated in 1732
and demolished for ideological reasons in 1968.
The distinctive weather vane shows the king's monogram under the sun, representing God.
The eagle represents the Christian soul,
striving not for God, but for the king.
Potsdam is in the long and painful process of recapturing its glorious Baroque past.
This isn't without controversy:
many argue that money would have been better spent on affordable housing,
which is in short supply in many German cities at the moment.
But it is a major tourist attraction,
and any visitor to Berlin would be well-advised to plan a day here.
As I mentioned at the beginning of the video, Potsdam is right next to Berlin.
Although a few long-distance trains do stop there,
the usual route is to go to Berlin,
and from there take a local train or an S-Bahn train.
If you're flying in to Tegel Airport,
the best route is to take the X9 bus to Zoologischer Garten,
and take the train from there.
From Schönefeld Airport there is a direct train to Potsdam,
but it's probably quicker just to take the S-Bahn through Berlin,
although that does mean you have to transfer.
Some long-distance coaches do call at Potsdam,
but it will usually be more convenient to take a coach to Berlin.
From the Central Coach Station, walk to Messe Nord station,
take the S-Bahn one stop to Westkreuz, and change there for Potsdam.
And if you need it, I have a video about Berlin's public transport system,
so check that out: there's a link in the description.
I stayed at the B&B Hotel
which is within easy walk of Potsdam's central station,
although a fair distance from the city centre.
It's a budget hotel, similar to the one I stayed at in Konstanz,
but with carpets.
It also manages to number its floors
in a manner that will be confusing to Europeans and Americans alike,
so watch out for that.
I have mentioned before that in Germany cash is still king,
but Potsdam appears to take this to an extreme.
Many cafés and even restaurants had signs up saying "Cash only",
which is something I've not noticed anywhere else.
Sanssouci Park is big,
with very long walks between all the various attractions.
You can of course have guided tours of the palaces and other buildings,
but don't think you're going to be able to do them all in one day.
Entry to the park is free,
but the sale of maps is used to help with the costs.
Don't worry about the people at the gates in period costume:
they are just selling these maps. You don't have to buy one.
You may have noticed that in many shots in this video the grass looks very brown.
That's because I happened to visit during one of the worst droughts in living memory:
it is not usually like that.
Finally, one thing that I sadly didn't have time for
was the film studios in Babelsberg.
It's not exactly Hollywood,
but a tour is definitely worth considering,
especially if you have children with you.
Thanks for watching. If you'd like to send me a postcard, here's the address.
And don't forget to visit my website and follow me on Twitter and Facebook.
Also, if you'd like access to special bonus content
and help with the costs of running this channel,
please consider making a small monthly donation on Patreon.
For more infomation >> Advanced English Speaking Vocabulary - Study Behaviour & Feelings Words - Learn English @ Michelle - Duration: 14:33. 
Không có nhận xét nào:
Đăng nhận xét