the dragon house.
inside the dragon house ( which was built between 1770 & 1772 by carl von gontard ) you can find a rather nice little restaurant & cafe that offers delicious viands. we sat down for coffee & cake here before we explored the second half of sanssouci park - it was really yummy and the interior is quite charming, too! the dragon house was named after the the 16 dragons that grace the roof of the pagoda-like structure. it was actually build as a home for a wine-maker on the klausberg hill, but they never really managed to produce good wine & so the business soon ended. the house itself was always in a little bit of disrepair because there was no real use to it ( only some guards used it, because it was in close approximity to the belvedere building ), until in 1934 it became a restaurant destination.
the dragons were really a lovely detail.
earlier i mentioned that there were always guards around who watched the belvedere not far away from the dragon house. may i present to you: the belvedere. it's a look-out that was erected on the klausberg hill in 1770/72.
the belvedere was in slight disrepair, which really made it the more charming.
it was still breathing the air of yore, and felt very impressive.
while the upper level is restored in frederician splendor, the lower level is kept the way it was left after it was destructed in world war 2. it's used as a gallery space these days.
we didn't go up to the second level ( the stairs were barred ), which i was a bit sad about, but well...
the weathered columns really kinda gave the place an eerie feeling.
we slowly started to make our way back home, and to do so we passed by the new palace - a huge baroque palace full of delicate & luxurious details. we visited this palace on a different day again to see the inside with the famous grotto & marble hall. needless to tell you, that this building is a good example for prussian bravado. it has over 200 rooms, several ball rooms & salons and it's equipped with the best of the materials only. i will be writing about this in a later post.
when you come near the palace these absolutely marvellous lamp posts are welcoming you. the iron work is very intricate and the sculptures supporting the posts are such a cool detail.
facade details & lamps. i wish they'd create lamps like this today as well. while i like minimalistic things from time to time, i am still a big lover of drama - and these lamp posts provide exactly that.
ya, you get it, i couldn't get enough 😅
you can find a lot of sculptures around the palace - up & down.
it was difficult for me to get good pictures of the whole building, because the sun was behind it.
the facade may appear like it was made out of bricks, but it's actually an illusion. brick supply was sometimes stagnant so they decided to plaster the outer walls & then paint the bricks on it. it really looks like a clinker facade, right? when the palace was erected everyone in europe built their palaces in a neo-classical style, only frederick remained true to baroque & rococo structures. by the way, he rarely resided in this oversized house, it was built as a summer guest house only and was the stage of many ostentatious parties & gatherings. only a lot later, when william II was emperor of germany, it was used as a permanent residence by him.
closer look at one of the putti above the many windows. also, you still cannot really make out that the facades were not clinkered. the illusion is perfection.
the vast garden grounds in front of the palace. and there is the ocean sky again!
parts of the building were fenced in because of the constructions. i liked the claddings with scenes from old frederick's life.
i'm sorry, not sorry, to present another lamp post to you,
dude's greetin ya like a bro, yo! he made my day with his pose - so hilarious!
the graces on the dome - many more sculptures on the roof.
right on the opposite to the palace you can find the communs - these were built to house the kitchen, utilities, gardener's shops, palace guards & the servants. quite a pompous structure, right? especially if you consider that you actually did not count as much as royals when you were working for them. i guess they lived quite some good lives, at least in comparison to regular servants?
a slightly more atmospheric picture.
the sun made a re-appearance and shone a wonderful evening light onto the front of the new palace. ( everything you've seen of the palace by now was shot from its rear ;)
ah, the communs struck me as slightly more majestic than the palace itself. inside you can now find various institutions of the university of potsdam. what a way to study!
the plaza in front of the communs & their colonnades is called mopke, which is a very unusual word with origins in the dutch language. it's a parade-ground basically. the sun was not ideal that evening, so... the picture is a bit messed up.
HDR-ed shot of one of the palace wings.
the windows on this side of the palace were gilded. fit perfectly with the red facades.
we moved back inside sanssouci park to stumble upon another palace, this time a much tinier one with the measures of a 'simple' villa: charlottenhof palace.
charlottenhof palace is not very far away from the new palace and it was the summer residence for frederick william IV. karl friedrich schinkel was the architect of the palace ( the dude who was also accountable for nikolai church ) & designed it with the picture of a roman villa in mind. it's a very neo-classical & simple building with an aura of elegance to it. i loved one detail the most: the blue & white window shutters. it wasn't open for public either ( many buildings of the sanssouci park aren't open in autumn & winter, in order to prevent damages to the structures etc. ), but just from the outside it was already a treat, looking a bit forlorn in the autumnal surroundings.
on each side of the main entrance these beautiful gazelle sculptures were welcoming you to the mansion. another detail i was really enamoured with.
the main entry also had symmetrical stone seatings. it is said that schinkel got his inspirations for the palace from his travels in italy.
in the garden of the palace you have this absolutely gorgeous access balcony which must be beautiful when the wine leaves are green & lush in summer, and i'm sure it's the same when they turn into their autumnal attire. in november there was not much left of that, you could only imagine how it must've looked like a few weeks prior. it leads to the red corner cabinet of the villa.
the garden was designed by hermann sello in cooperation with peter joseph lenné and it was a groundbreaking creation back in the time, because it incorporated geometrical 'italian' elements into a scenic landscape. it's basically on two levels, this one being the upper one.
some more details of the villa terrace. very italian & classical. the inside of the palace is a dream, too, judging from the pictures i've seen on this website here. especially the tent room is a true eye-catcher.
from the access balcony stairs lead down to the second level, with two statues bedecking the walls. the garden down there is full of roses.
i like to imagine that the cat we encountered in the rose garden was the actual inhabitant of the palace. the way she moved around the grounds was perfectly indicating of her knowledge of the property. she also kinda looked very aristocratic. she stole my heart. look at those white pawwwssss. 😻
she used the wooden boundary fence for the fountain as her personal scratching post. what a taste!
unfortunately we had still a lot of way to cover and had to bid the cat goodbye ( but not after a little cuddling session, of course, what kind of cat lover would i be if i had wasted that opportunity? ). we passed by another italian/roman-inspired property, the roman baths. it is very close to charlottenhof palace ( and was probably intented to be an extension of it ). schinkel once again was the creator of it, but the actual construction was made under the directions of his student ludwig persius. frederick william again had a huge say to how the whole ensemble should look like so his ideas were incorporated into the construction as well. this building was also not open, and i can understand why, because this one must be absolutely more enchanting in spring & summer, when flowers & bushes are in full bloom. the remnants of summer & early autumn flowers were a reminder to how it might look on sunny days, too.
the baths were never used for their actual purpose, they are purely a product of bringing italian vibes into the charlottenhof property. which is actually a shame, considering that even the bath itself is such a gem.
plaice & oyster fountain. loved this detail.
leaving the roman baths through a hedge tunnel.
waving goodbye to the gardener's house ( which is part of the roman baths ).
we left park sanssouci for good and made a little walk downtown to grab a bite somewhere. on our search for a restaurant we discovered this little back alley with former industrial complex that was beautifully lit. i love wandering around the back alleys, sometimes there's surprises hidden there.
i have no information about the past of this industrial gem, unfortunately.
maybe it was a dairy farm prior? chimneys like this often were part of old dairy farm structures. ah, well, whatever it was, the brickstones of the facade & the patterns they created were just right up my sleeve. love me some good brickstone architecture ;)
our night ended in a restaurant that evening, of which i don't have any proof of, but i can tell you that we had some good steaks in a very cozy restaurant not far away from where we had our headquarters.
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