Potsdam Private Walk Tour from Berlin

More than 30 palaces and gardens in Berlin and Brandenburg invite visitors to go on lively time travels back into the brilliant era of the Prussian kings and queens. Testimonies to the accomplished architecture and landscape gardening in Prussia, they have largely belonged to the UNESCO World Heritage since 1991. Their paradisiacal beauty is in keeping with their sobriquet “Prussian Arcadia.” Among these are the world renowned Sanssouci Palace in Potsdam and Charlottenburg Palace in Berlin.

The pleasure palace of Frederick the Great features beautiful Rococo-style architecture and a magnificent palace garden. On April 14, 1745, the foundation stone was laid for today's world famous Sanssouci Palace. Sanssouci is an masterpiece ensemble of architecture, sculptures and garden art.

A colossal palace building, its high tambour dome recognizable from afar, rises up at the western end of the Hauptallee (the main promenade) in Sanssouci Park: the Neues Palais (New Palace). In strong contrast to the intimate and rather modest Sanssouci Palace the large palace complex served official, representational needs. Grand banquet halls, splendid galleries and regally designed suites, not to mention Sanssouci’s Baroque palace theater in the southern wing, await visitors in its interior. Select works of 18th century art and decorative arts can be viewed at the palace in their original contexts. The New Palace is the last royal residence Frederick the Great would have built in his park. It was a demonstration of the Prussian state’s undiminished power and wealth following the deprivations of the Seven Years’ War (1756–63).

The Dutch Quarter, colloquially also known as the Dutch Quarter, is a district in the center of Potsdam that was built between 1733 and 1742 as part of the second city expansion under the direction of the Dutch master builder Jan Bouman from Amsterdam.[1] The quarter consists of 134 brick houses, which are divided into four squares by Mittelstrasse and Benkertstrasse. Under Friedrich Wilhelm I, known as the "soldier king", the district was planned and the two western squares were built. After his death in 1740, his son and successor Frederick II had the quarter with the two eastern squares completed largely according to his father's plans.

Cecilienhof Country House, built from 1913–17 according to plans by Paul Schultze in the style of a country manor, was the last palace erected by the Hohenzollerns. From July 17 to August 2, 1945, the summit meeting of World War II’s victorious powers took place here, attended by the “Big Three” – the American president Harry S. Truman, the British prime minister Winston Churchill (followed by his successor Clement Attlee), and the Soviet head of state Joseph Stalin. The Potsdam Conference was one the most important historical events of the 20th century. It is seen around the world as a symbol of the end of World War II and the beginning of the Cold War, which led to the division of Europe and the erection of the Berlin Wall. The Potsdam Agreement adopted at Cecilienhof laid the groundwork for a new order in Germany, Europe, and the world after World War II.