Tourist attractions Potsdam

The main staircase leading to this palace provides visitors with an impressive view of its façade fronted by terraces. The rear façade facing the main courtyard is flanked by a semicircular colonnade. Inside the palace, the rooms have been skilfully ..

Designed partly by Peter Joseph Lenné, Prussia’s most talented landscape gardener, Sanssouci Park covers nearly 300ha and features several hundred species of trees. The various palaces and buildings were constructed between 1744 and 1860. A World Her..

Long divided between Dahlem Museum in the west and the Bode Museum in the east, Berlin’s collection of paintings was brought together in 1998 and housed in the Kulturforum; it is now one of the most important in Europe. The Gemäldegalerie is home t..

Following the transfer of the Art Gallery to the Kulturforum and the merger of the Islamic Art Museum with the Pergamon Museum , the exhibition areas at Dahlem now house the collections of the Ethnological Museum and the Museum of Asian Art . T..

This ethnological museum is one of the largest in the world with nearly 400,000 exhibits. Pre-Columbian America is represented by stone steles from Cozumalhuapa, Mayan objects, and Aztec statues; the golden chamber with its magnificent jewels and..

This Chinese pavilion, a circular building decorated with gilded statues, stands in the Sanssouci Park . It emerged from the 18C mania for all things Chinese. Inside there is an exhibition of Chinese porcelain.

With its attractive 18C and 19C houses, this small square is one of the oldest and most beautiful in Potsdam. The most striking building is the Kutschenstall , which once served as a stables for the royal carriages. Built between 1787 and 1790 by An..

This "boast", as Friedrich II qualified it, is the largest palace in Potsdam. The king wanted to demonstrate that the economic power of Prussia remained intact after emerging victorious from the arduous Seven Years War. It was intended to h..

Dedicated to the memory of his friend Tsar Alexander I, Frederick William III built this group of wooden houses between 1826 and 1827 in the style of a Russian village. Lenné was commissioned to build 13 houses surrounded by gardens and arranged in t..

The garden was laid out around a lake in the late 18C for Friedrich Wilhelm II, who was very keen on English gardens. The grounds were later bequeathed to the last heir prince (1882-1951) and his wife. The garden is scattered with small buildings (Or..

With its rural gardens and its palace , the Pfaueninsel (Peacock Island) is typical of the dominant fashion of the late 18C. A popular place for a stroll, the island can be accessed by boat from the landing stage at the end of Nikolskoer Weg.

In the 16C this 3,100-ha forest planted with different species was a hunting reserve for the elector princes. To the east, the forest is bordered by a string of small lakes dotted here and there with residential districts. On the edge of the Grunewal..

Designed to house 15,000 people, this housing estate built by Martin Wagner between 1926 and 1932 is one of the best examples of a garden city in Berlin. Laid out around an underground railway station (U-Bahn) with a shopping centre and cinema, the h..

Dotted with villas built in the style of English cottages and adapted to the Brandenburg setting by Hermann Muthesius (1861-1927), the old aristocratic estate of Dahlem is now a residential district surrounded by greenery. This quarter, situated in s..

The merger of the Museum of Indian Art (Museum für Indische Kunst) and the Museum of East Asian Art at Dahlem has created one of the most important collections of Indo-Asian art in Europe. Dating from the 4C BC to the present day, the collection high..

This extraordinary garden offers a profusion and fascinating variety of tree, plants and shrubs from all five continents (22,000 species), both outdoors and in greenhouses (1906-07). The greenhouses form a labyrinth of glass domes which house magni..

The art gallery (Bildergalerie) was built between 1755 and 1763. In a large Rococo-style room, admire works of art by Italian, Flemish and Dutch masters, such as Caravaggio, Tintoretto, Bassano, Simon Vouet, Van Loo, Terbrugghen, Van Dyck and Rubens,..

The monumental Brandenburg Gate, which takes the form of a Roman triumphal arch, was built in the Baroque style in 1770.

Designed by K.F. Schinkel, this palace was built between 1826 and 1829 in the Italian Classical style. Sights of interest include Alexander von Humboldt’s study and bedroom.

The old orangery designed by Knobelsdorff in 1747 was transformed into living quarters for the king's guests between 1771 and 1775. The Rococo decoration is bright and elegant. Of particular interest is the Ovid Gallery whose wooden panels are adorne..