the grotto hall inside the new palace.
on our last full day in potsdam we re-visited the new palace again as it was open to the public that day ( it was closed the last time we made our way there, unfortunately, but we really wanted to see it from the inside ). my mother had talked a lot about the palace and how impressive & majestic it was. back when she was a teenager she was able to also visit the palace theater & the appartment of the king ( which was now under construction & couldn't be entered ). her eyes had always had that special glow whenever she talked about it and now, after visiting the palace myself, i will probably look the same when you see me talking about it ;) the interiors are utterly pompous & luxurious, completely breath-taking & mind-blowing. i have never seen so much splendor in a palace before.
as i have written before, the palace was built to be a representative place for gatherings of the royal family. frederick the great had it built entirely for this purpose only ( his real home was sanssouci palace when he stayed in potsdam ). the royal family had to be housed in a presentable manner and thus frederick decided that the palace with its 200 rooms had to have the most exotic & grandiose interior ( & exterior ) ever seen in baroque architecture. the materials had to be the best of the best, the architecture had to be as flamboyant as possible, because it not only needed to meet the standard of royal members, it was designed to be overtly ostentatious to everyone who visited. it was purely a palace to show off.
i am a bit sad that i photographed the palace entirely in HDR mode, as it turned the pictures grainy & strangely lit. on the little screen it looked well, but when editing these photos i had a hard time making them look more natural. for some of these pictures the mode worked well, but if i had to decide again, i would probably choose my preferred mode of taking pictures: in sunset mode. ah, well. you never know how you handle things, if you don't try yourself out at it, right? experimenting does that to you. nonetheless, i don't want to withhold the pictures from you, as they still show off the interiors of the palace perfectly.
close-up of the grotto hall. the grotto hall is decked out in shells, stones, semi-precious stones, marble & quartz entirely and wows you with intricate imagery. for example on this picture, can you make out the dragon?
i shot some more grotto hall pictures, but first here's another room: the marble gallery. the architect gontard had a huge hand into the design of the palace.
it's basically a hall of mirrors and cladded in carrara marble.
back to the grotto hall with its fantastic decor.
there were several rooms that were decked out in paintings, so called cabinets. this particular one was kept in a raw state to show off another piece of history that happened inside this castle: russians entering the palace & stealing heaps of valuable art. i can't remember the history of this room anymore, i'm sure they told it to us. i really liked the 'unmade' look of this room & all the art that hang on the walls, though. it had a very shabby chic vibe going on and i would probably display art like this as well. the juxtaposition is just too good. by the way, ALL THE ART! it was overwhelming to see all these paintings everywhere and some of them were the real deal, like, really famous. the black & white pictures in this room were not the originals but put up to showcase the state of the cabinet before it was robbed off the art. these are missing paintings, not returned from russia ( or maybe even nazis ).
the writing on the wall is russian for 'death to the conquerors'. quite grim i'd say.
the ceiling of the red damask chamber. it really was a delight to look at. frederickan rococo design is quite marvellous, especially the gilded stucco works!
the damask chamber was one of my favourites. i'm really drawn to red surroundings & find them very soothing even. gosh, and look at the furniture? the whole palace basically is a total work of art.
here the damask wall coverings are accentuated really well! red & gold is such a good combination.
for some rooms i can't remember their official names and it's really difficult to research info about them. but just looking at them is already enough, right?
almost too much at times, haha.
occasionally you would walk over the most amazing wood floorings, like this beauty. the rose inlays are super intricate!
later in history the palace was inhabited by frederick III & wilhelm II ( who installed bathrooms in the palace ). this is one of the bathrooms with beautiful dutch tiles.
i definitey have a thing with lightings. this chandelier was made out of meissen porcelain.
the marble hall was another remarkable & outstanding beauty inside the palace. look at the golden ceiling! & the awesome marble inlays! the hall breathes an opulent elegance that struck me as more impressive than the grotto hall. it was used as a ballroom & banqueting hall, which must've been extraordinarily decadent back in the day ( as it probably is today, lol ). on the ceiling you can also discover the 'biggest canvas ceiling painting north of the alps', 'the induction of ganymede in olympus' by charles-amédée- philippe van loo.
there were more rooms we got to see, but none of the pictures i took of them were satisfying enough to show them, so this is the last one of our palace tour.
when we got outside again we took a closer look at the communs & the gate of triumph & the surrounding colonnades. it was the official entry point to the palace & supposed to hide the marshlands that the palace looked upon.
one of the communs buildings from the rear side. they were also built by gontard & the inspiration for them was the grand commun in versailles. both of the buildings are now used as faculty buildings for the university of potsdam ( their initial purpose was to house servants & guards ).
i mentioned before that the new palace had always looked upon marshland in the past and this is where we were headed after our time at the palace. we wanted to have a little time-out in nature or at least in a less crowded & more suburban area. we had seen that not far away from the palace there were 2 more structures that might be interesting for us: lindstedt palace & crown estate bornstedt. lindstedt palace is situated in a very remote forest area ( and, you guessed it, was closed down for winter :( ). it was erected under frederick william IV from 1858 to 1861, inititally planned as his retirement home. it never was one, though and it was repurposed as a quarantine station for the imperial children when there were cholera & tuberculosis epidemics and also as a home for federal employees. other residents were erich von falkenhayn ( the boss of hindenburg's general staff ), the botanical institute of the GDR university of potsdam & the forensic medicine.
the neo-classical structure was inspired by italian villas ( remember frederick william IV being way too much into italian architecture? ). i'm pretty sure it's quite a lovely building when the sun's shining, but in the overcast & kind of foggy weather conditions we got to see it in, it felt kind of enchanted & mysterious. i also really liked that it wasn't overly restored, there were some parts of chipped off painting & patina on the walls. it made it look even more forlorn.
i seriously love any kind of building that has a good colonnade situation going on.
today you can rent/lease the palace for various happenings such as weddings or gatherings etc. it feels like a pretty nice location for these things, especially considering that you are quite undisturbed by possible neighbors - there are practically none. only the woods are nearby & two little lakes.
also, i really love arched hedgerows, i guess.
the little belvedere tower of the palace. i'm guessing you might be able to see the dome of the new palace pretty well from here. it's only 800 meters away ( not too far, but also not too close either, considering that lindstedt palace feels so suburban ).
we ventured on into the surrounding woods, in search of a lake called the great murky pond ( großer düsterer teich ). it was nice to enjoy some really nice november moods out there ( that day was actually the most novembery day we had experienced on our visit there - most of the time we actually had perfect sunny weather with a few hints of fog here & there ).
tiny little pathways through autumnal yellow woods ❤
ground soil of a fallen tree.
and then we reached our destination: the great murky pond. the name actually fit ;) because it is surrounded by alder & willow trees it exudes an eeriely enchanted mood.
the pond is habitat of many rare bird species, too. ( no, the tree is no such bird :P )
caught a stray wanderer amongst a yellow paradise.
and another one with a beautiful white dog playing in the fields next to lindstedt palace. in the far you can see the dome of the new palace.
i can't get enough of this shade of yellow - everytime in autumn i fall in love with it again.
hello little estray 😘
after stumbleing around in the woods for a bit we moved forward to visit the crown estate bornstedt. we passed by the bornstedt cemetery and i had a sneak peak over a wall. it looked really promising, but in the end we did not enter the graveyard. this memorial is part of the war hero grove, i even found some info about it! it was designed by walter e. lemke in 1937. that dude was mostly active in the era of national socialism ( which shows in the figure of the sculpture - the ideal form of a german man ). he is also known for the nazi eagles - eagle sculptures that carried nazi symbols. it's kinda bizarre to me to find the work of nazi artists still present in modern times, but i'm also kind of glad about it, because you never stop learning about this era, and therefore don't really forget about the terror. it keeps it present to me, always a reminder that there was this time of utter horror in history and we should all work on not letting these times return ever again. ( when you look at modern society now, i feel like those nazi tendencies are more present than ever, and it freaks me out that people obviously fall into that dubious trap of the dangerous kind of national pride... )
the colonnade of the bornstedt church, first built in 1805, but consequently finished in 1881/82. friedrich august stüler & reinhold persius were responsible for this brickstone church that was heavily inspired by italian religious architecture.
you don't see much of the church here, only the colonnades & the campanile. we didn't make the effort to take a closer look as the crown estate bornstedt was just around the corner and we were momentarily more interested in this ensemble 😅
before we explored the grounds of the crown estate we stopped at this little bakery for some coffee & cake. it was a welcome break after exploring in the cold november weather.
the bornstedt crown estate goes way back to the middle ages, but the current state of it was constructed in 1846 to 1848, after it had burned down. the italian-style property was always used as some kind of farming estate, but also was the place of residence for a few members of the royal family ( princess feodora - sister to augusta victoria, wife of emperor william II - for example ). these days it's open to the public and houses a few retailers & gastronomers. all year through there are festivities & activities taking place here, such as christmas markets or concerts & re-enactings.
there wasn't a lot going on when we visited, on weekdays it seems to be rather deserted.
the main entry to the estate.
the creme building in the middle is the former manor house and the white on the right side of the pictures was once the brewery ( and is now a restaurant ).
the bornstedt lake is situated directly next to the estate.
old tractors were standing around the property and this pink one really was an eye-catcher :)
since there wasn't a lot to see we soon left the estate and made our way back to sanssouci park. we passed by the ruinenberg ( ruin hill ) - which actually hides a water tank behind an artificial ruin facade. it was built in 1748. the surrounding english landscape garden is a creation of mister lenné. by now it got increasingly darker and it made for a PERFECT mood.
artificial ruins were often erected for purely aesthetic purposes - you can find them in baroque & english gardens a lot.
from within the monopteros.
the norman tower is supposed to have a good view over potsdam city, but i cannot confirm, since it was closed.
the tower next to the water tank. loved the medieval feeling of this building.
looking back on the ionic columns & the monopteros.
ah, beautiful colourssssss.
we climbed upon the walls of the water tank and i got this nice picture of the norman tower mirroring inside the water.
the three ionic columns are actually 4, one of them skillfully leaned against the main columns. this was the last picture of the day & the next day would be our last day in potsdam.
as it was raining cats & dogs on our last day we decided to visit some museums, therefore i don't really shot a lot of pictures. i don't like taking pictures inside museums because often it is forbidden, i only occasionally sneakily take some cellphone pictures ;) we visited the film museum ( which was really cool, i'd recommend it a thousand times to anyone visiting potsdam to learn about the local film industry - in addition to visiting the babelsberg movie park, which we didn't get to see :( ) & the natural history museum - also recommendable, they have really nice dioramas inside.
on our way to the museums we passed by some brightly coloured plattenbau buildings - remnants of the GDR past.
let's just say i wanted to capture some GDR buildings on my last day, after all the prussian glory we got to see the days prior, haha.
what really irks me about researching for info about GDR buildings is the fact that you can't really find a lot. it's as if everything that was build during that time is under the guise of oblivion, which makes me sad, because apparently it's a thorn in the eye to most people. while recently the architecture of the 50ies to 70ies is going through a revival, GDR architecture ( built around THE SAME TIME ) is not. a lot of cities want to tear them down, for whatever reason - i guess because they have bad connotations with the regime. it's just funny to me that brutalist & modern architecture of 'the west' is so en vogue, but GDR architecture is not. they're so close to each other in style it's almost comical.
the old university building with nikolai church in the back. it's so strange to me that the pictures i took of this building will be a reminder of what once was, especially when there will be a return in the future and there is nothing left of it.
the rest of the day was spent inside the two museums i mentioned before - a good closure to our time in potsdam.
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