We set out from our hotel at 8:15 on damp streets under gray skies for a day trip to Sans Souci park. Sans Souci (French for "carefree") was built by Frederick the Great, King of Prussia, as his summer home and a getaway where he could live apart from his wife, with whom he was not happy. (N.B. Sophie Charlotte, who built Charlottenburg palace that we visited on Sep. 2nd, had one surviving son, Frederick Wilhelm (1688-1740) who ruled as Frederick I of Prussia. His son, Frederick II (1712-1786) is "the Great" and built Sans Souci.)
Park Sans Souci is in Potsdam, at the end of the S-Bahn line. You are delivered to a bustling train station, go outside to a bus plaza and pick the next of several bus lines and ride a mile and a half to an unmarked stop. Actually we went a stop too far and walked around a while to find the almost-unmarked park entrance. Signage was a problem all day.
They are not where they are pointing.
Problem was, Park Sans Souci is huge. Fred II bought a big parcel of land and built a palace, then another, then another; and his successors added various follies, temples, and special houses for retainers. It's at least a mile long and half a mile wide, and we walked all of it.
Sans Souci Palace
Here's the main palace, as we saw it in late afternoon when we got a gleam of sunlight.
The terraces in front are vineyards. Grapevines don't grow real well at this latitude, but Fred II had a serious go at it.
No doubt about it being a party pad.
Fred II loved what came to be called the Rococo style. He never met a gilded frill that he didn't like.
Click through and boggle.
We always like it when stately-home tours include kitchens, and this one did.
The Cooking Machine.
Having an enclosed stove for cooking was a big technological advance. It replaced open-hearth cooking, with a huge saving in fuel costs.
The New Chambers
Needing more room for guest quarters and functions, Fred II commissioned another palace a hundred yards west, the Neue Kammern or New Chambers.
The Orangerie
Fred's hobby was growing fruit, and not wanting to be hampered by the German winters, he built, a bit west of the Neue Kammern, a really big Orangerie.
An orangerie is a building where you keep your fruit trees in winter. You grow your oranges and other delicate fruit trees in big tubs and, come the frosts, your gardeners trundle the tubs into the Orangerie. Come spring, trundle them out again. Here's the view from the tower.
Here we were told to put on felt over-slippers and then we could walk on the original parquet floors.
The Prussian nobility had a passion for all things Italian and especially for the artist Raphael. Fred wasn't able to buy enough (any?) Raphaels, so he commissioned German art students to go to Italy and paint copies. He set up a room in the Orangerie to display his 42 fake Raphaels.
By the time we'd finished the Orangerie we were tired, thirsty, hungry, and fairly sick of Rococo. We set off down a lovely alley of linden trees to find the Drachenhaus where a cafe was said to be.
For ease of reading we'll break at this point and start a new entry. You can see lots more wretched excess in the gallery, pages 9-12.
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