We headed out to Potsdam on the train on the Friday evening, and then caught the bus to Geltow and walked the extra 5-10 minutes to our accommodation. It was in the middle of suburbia, but was a big German-style guest house/hotel I guess you would call it. It was certainly comfortable and decently appointed, and it included dinner for one of the two nights we would be there - so we had that the first night. The menu was set, but was very nice and we had some lovely fish as a main, as well as having an entree and dessert along with some wine.
As part of my birthday, Sasha had organised a trip away for a weekend. Managing to get a package deal with quite a discount, we were going to stay in Geltow - just outside of Potsdam. A lot was included with it, and it would let us explore more of Potsdam as its one of our favourite places to visit. We headed out to Potsdam on the train on the Friday evening, and then caught the bus to Geltow and walked the extra 5-10 minutes to our accommodation. It was in the middle of suburbia, but was a big German-style guest house/hotel I guess you would call it. It was certainly comfortable and decently appointed, and it included dinner for one of the two nights we would be there - so we had that the first night. The menu was set, but was very nice and we had some lovely fish as a main, as well as having an entree and dessert along with some wine. The deal also included day passes for the Potsdam metro system, so on the Saturday after breakfast we put these to good use and headed into Potsdam and then along to the "Biosphäre Potsdam" which we also had complimentary tickets for. This was a biodome, but not in a dome shape - instead it was an elongated rectangle, but was quite fascinating and we had a really good couple of hours wandering around the dome. We spent perhaps too long in the butterfly enclosure where it was really hot, but the butterflies did start landing on us although we never did manage to get that elusive decent shot of one of the amazing blue butterflies! We also had lunch here, which proved rather tasty also - even if it was meatballs and pasta! We then headed back into Potsdam's central area and then over to Park Sansoucci, Potsdam's main park of the 3 big parks and the first one that we had done. As it was still essentially winter, it looked a lot different - lots of Statues boarded over and covered up, and the plants were bare twigs or vines. We wandered up over into a part of the park we hadn't been before, stopped for a beverage and some cheesecake to share at one of the park's little cafe's before we headed back by bus into the Dutch Quarter of Potsdam which we hadn't really explored before. We had some dinner place recommendations here, but they were a bit pricey for us so we scoped out all of what was around, then popped into a pub which specialized in Belgian Beer where we had one or two beers before going into a slightly unassuming restaurant for dinner. This was an Italian restaurant, but they did great food and also had a very tasty red as their house wine. After breakfast on our final day, we checked out and headed back into Potsdam. We got tickets for the Potsdam boat cruise, wandered around Potsdam's very pretty and charming main square for a while before heading back to the wharf in order to board the boat. There was already a very heavy queue when we arrived, but we did manage to get some outdoor seats near the front of the boat. This was the ordinary "simple" cruise route we were taking around the Potsdam lake, but not on the ordinary boats - on weekends in the warmer months this company also use a vintage steam boat (this was its first weekend in use for the year), which you could ride on for no extra charge and this was exactly what we were doing because why not? we chugged around the different Potsdam "see's" (because in German, there is no differentiation between Lake and Sea) past the town, past Park Babbelsberg which we have not yet done, past the small Castle on an Island and then back past the Neues Park and back under the "Bridge of Spies" - the bridge connecting the state of Brandenburg with Berlin, but which happened to fall between the border of East Germany and West Berlin. On this bridge, a border point between East and West, they often exchanged prisoners who were often captured spies. During the cruise on the lake, one of the staff had come around asking for refreshment orders and we'd gotten ourselves a beer each to enjoy. After the rather scenic and enjoyable cruise on the boat, we wanted lunch - but didn't quite know where except we thought the restaurants along the main stretch would probably be too full of tourists and pricey at the moment. So we headed back to the dutch quarter and ended up at the Belgian Beer cafe again, where we had a few more beers as well as lunch in their conservatory-like area which was very pleasant (and the food, not only being a reasonable price was very delicious and filling!). Feeling a bit worn and also a bit sleepy from the high-percentage Belgian beers, we made our way to the station and caught the train back to Berlin. It was a thoroughly lovely weekend all round - a mix of relaxing as well as on-the-go, and we can say we've stayed in Brandenburg outside of Berlin now too if only just! I would thoroughly recommend the Biosphäre (although it might not be as "intense" as the one at the Eden Project in Cornwall, its a bit more well-rounded) as well as the lake cruise in Potsdam. A huge, huge thank you to Sasha for organising it all - I still don't actually know how much it all cost and how big of a discount she got, but she was struggling not to tell me exactly how much it was with the substantial discount vs what it normally cost so it must have been pretty good!
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A Kiwi out travelling in the UK and surrounding countries Archives
August 2019
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