Wednesday 15th June - Berlin
After successfully navigating the train system to the rental car firm and then driving out of Berlin we arrived in Potsdam at Sanssouci, Frederick the Great's former summer palace. Ignoring the light drizzle we admired his magnificent gardens and buildings, noting that his guest house is over 1km from his main house, smart man.
He had some impressive scented roses and rose beds; I made our gardener take special note for the uncultivated land out at the back of our place. Although quite a few scenic tourist spots are free to view, toilets are not. Parking charges vary but not as much as the opening hours of food outlets. We have encountered small shops and street stalls that are open 3 times a day; they open late in the morning then shut for a few hours, open again in the afternoon, then shut and reopen in the evening. It is light still at 9.30pm so the towns are quite busy at night.
Driving is interesting especially in a country where not only are you on the wrong side of the road, but you have to anticipate that sometimes pedestrians have the right of way and they step out assuming you will stop. Bikes are everywhere and also have the right of way, or so it appears. It is not compulsory to wear a helmet nor stick to the bike lane, cars just seem to respect cyclists. We are learning our Einfahrts from our Ausfahrts and quickly learning what a tram only road looks like. Germany caters for tourists by putting in U-Turn gaps in traffic islands and identifying them in English. If you can’t read the traffic signs the GPS commentary always helps, unless you don’t like being given instructions or believe it’s wrong and you silence it.
We caught the train into town to see the Brandenberg Gate, Checkpoint Charlie and the remainder of the Berlin Wall along with hundreds of others.
There wasn’t much to see so we headed home to do some more research on better Wall tourism and to eat German Pizza. Another observation from today is that cash is the main currency not eftpos or credit cards. Trains work on an honesty system, there is no swiping of tickets on or off the train. There are many many smokers, but just like in the rest of the world smoking is banned inside buildings so smokers congregate right in the doorway. Being openly gay in public is the norm and dress is casual. People wear what they like and unlike NZ they don’t all get around in black.
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Sansoucci Palace, Potsdam
Tourist Looking at Stuff
Crappy day, nice garden
