Berlin and Potsdam

This song kept getting in my head the whole time I was in Berlin, really only for the line "Here in Berlin..." not for the sentiments expressed particularly, but it can serve as a soundtrack for this post if you like!
On Thursday morning I discovered I could see Giselle’s hostel from just outside my hotel. Walked around and met her in the lobby. We waited till Frau Holl and Mr Fab came down then said our good-byes. 
We caught a train to the East Side gallery which is the longest remaining section of the Berlin Wall (except for the bits that have been taken out for new building) and also, apparently, the longest open air gallery in the world. Painted by 118 artists from 21 countries immediately after the wall came down, it officially opened as an open air gallery on 28 September 1990. It is now protected an a memorial and the paintings have been restored a couple of times already.
Next to the Topography of Terror exhibition, housed on the location of SS offices, prison and Reich security main office. It's a very comprehensive exhibition and documentation centre, both inside and out although it all gets a bit depressing after a while.
Next to Nineties Berlin a special multimedia exhibition ,only on for a short time (6 months). Using your phone you linked into their interactive information source. It was about the wall coming down and the culture that exploded in Berlin the the subsequent 10 years. Very loud, techno music. Interesting interviews on screens from various people with different roles and perspectives on Berlin at the time, from artists to historians to politicians, musicians and police officers. In an outside area they had a section of the wall and a memorial with linked information about all 138 people who died trying to escape East Berlin. There was a labyrinth that led to multimedia displays of music and images. Far more information available than you could possibly read/absorb in one go but overall very interesting.
We had a very late lunch at an Italian restaurant, very large pizzas but we managed to eat them!
From there we went to the DDR museum. This was a lot of fun, a very interactive, hands on exhibition about what life was like living in East Berlin including a Trabant car with simulated driving experience (Giselle managed to crash a couple of times before the fuel ran out!), and a whole apartment furnished just as it would have been in the 70's with lots to explore in the cupboards. Highly recommended!

Potsdam

Finally found a decent coffee! It took Einstein to make it...no actually Einstein Kaffee is a chain of coffee shops, I’ve only seen one other so far (I've Googled since and sadly it seems they are only in Berlin, Potsdam and Frankfurt, dammit). Such a relief to have a coffee that actually tastes good, is of a reasonable strength and isn’t half UHT milk froth.
We caught an S bahn train to Potsdam, about 35 minutes away, and then joined a bus tour. In summer months this bus is one of the hop on/hop off type but in winter it just has one departure daily with three stops of 20-30 minutes with a live guide to explain a little about where you are. On the bus the live guide only speaks in German but they have the usual recorded information in various languages available.
Potsdam is a very interesting place with a lot of significant history, particularly from the 20th century and the cold war. There are a number of very impressive buildings, variously described as castles or palaces. We stopped at:

• Schloss Cecilienhof, a British styled castle of elaborate brick with Tudor styling and 55 chimneys (only five of which function) which are all different. This was only built in the early 20th century (when central heating was already available, hence the chimneys being largely for decoration. Cecilienhof was the location of the Potsdam Conference in 1945, in which the leaders of the Soviet Union, the United Kingdom and the United States - Stalin, Churchill and Truman - held discussions about post World War II Europe and Asia.
• Schloss Sanssouci - this was the summer palace and favourite residence of Frederick the Great. The name Sanssouci means without a care – this was the place where he most preferred to retreat in the company of his dogs. It was his wish to be buried there but for various historical reasons (of which I couldn’t keep up with) this didn’t happen until 1991. Frederick introduced the potato to the local people so for this reason, to this day, there are always some fresh potatoes placed on his grave. Winter is obviously not the best time to visit. All the statues at ground level are boarded up in their own little sheds to avoid the damage that is obvious on the elevated statues. The grand semi circular covered walkway seems to be a feature of these palaces as we saw it again at the Neue Palace.
• Neue Palace: also built by Frederick the Great, this is a huge building and opposite there are two matching (each other) buildings that are equally grand, one was the servants quarters and the other the kitchens. The main palace was rarely lived in by Frederick. Although it looks like brick it is actually painted sandstone. Today it is something of a Sydney Harbour bridge with a team of painters constantly re-painting the brick pattern. The servants quarters and kitchen are now part of a university that was attended by our guide.

Travelling around the Potsdam area we also saw: 

• (across the river) a palace that was only for women
• the Glienicke bridge in the middle of which was the border between East and West Germany, you can still see where the border is as one side is a paler green than the other. The bridge was closed during this time. This was the bridge where there were several prisoner swaps between the Soviets and the Americans during the Cold War, it became known as the Bridge of Spies. The name Glienicke means Unity - it was renamed this after West Berlin paid for the restoration of both sides of the bridge.
• Several other significant buildings including some that were originally army barracks for the large numbers of troops who were stationed here
• The Dutch quarter of Potsdam - Potsdam is an island in a river and thus very swampy ground. The Dutch quarter was constructed in an effort to attract Dutch builders and labourers who knew how to deal with building on this type of terrain
• A variety of large houses, all very attractive in semi-rural settings
• Potsdam’s own Brandenburg gate, plus several other gates that were part of the original city wall which was constructed in 1718, not to fend off attack but to keep soldiers from deserting.

At the end of the tour we were dropped off in the city centre where there was (yet another) Christmas market. We took advantage of that for a cheap lunch of Bratwurst and Quarkballen (separately) and then caught a tram back to the station. Some of Potsdam’s trams look remarkably like Melbourne’s modern low floor trams.
We finished the day with a visit to the Ritter Bunte SchokoWelt, a cafe and shop where you can purchase everything Ritter chocolate. Afternoon tea of hot chocolate (dark for me, nougat for Giselle) and a chocolate fondue (got to get some fruit into us somehow!) and a few chocolate purchases (OK, four blocks plus a 500g bag of mini blocks for 7 euro) which may or may not make their way home to Australia!
I have written this while travelling on a train from Nurembery to Basel (via Frankfurt). I would have done it on yesterday's train to Nuremberg but the train's wifi wasn't working! I will update on our day in Nuremberg later.