Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
surrounded by two thousand volumes - mainly French translations of classics and a
sprinkling of contemporary French writings - he could oversee work on his tomb.
One of Frederick's most celebrated house guests was Voltaire, who lived here from
1750 to 1753, acting as a kind of private tutor to the king, finally leaving when he'd
had enough of Frederick's behaviour, damning the king's intellect with faint praise and
accusing him of treating “the whole world as slaves”. In revenge Frederick had Voltaire's
former room decorated with carvings of apes and parrots.
he
Damenflügel
, the west wing of the Schloss, was added in 1840, its thirteen rooms
housing ladies and gentlemen of the court. Nearby on the terrace is a wrought-iron
summerhouse protecting a weatherbeaten copy of a Classical statue, while just to the south
an eighteenth-century sculpture of Cleopatra looks over the graves of Frederick's horses.
Around Schloss Sanssouci
East of Schloss Sanssouci, overlooking the ornamental
Holländischer Garten
, or Dutch
Garden, is the restrained Baroque
Bildergalerie
(mid-May to Oct Tues-Sun 10am-
6pm; €6), which, it's claimed, was the first building in Europe built specifically as a
museum. Unfortunately, wartime destruction and looting scattered the contents, but
the new collection includes Caravaggio's wonderful
Incredulity of St homas
and several
works by Rubens and Van Dyck. On the opposite side of the Schloss, from a point
near the Cleopatra statue, steps lead down to the
Neue Kammern
(March Sat & Sun
10am-5pm; April-Oct Tues-Sun 10am-5pm; €4 with tour, €3 without), the
architectural twin of the Bildergalerie, originally an orangerie and later a guesthouse.
Immediately west is the prim
Sizilianischer Garten
or Sicilian Garden, crammed with
coniferous trees and subtropical plants, complementing the
Nordischer Garten
, another
ornamental garden just to the north, whose most interesting feature is the strange-
looking
Felsentor
or Rock Gate, a gateway fashioned out of uncut stones and topped
by a lumpen-looking eagle with outstretched wings.
Frederick was prepared to go to some lengths to achieve the desired carefree rural
ambience for Sanssouci and retained an old wooden windmill as an ornament just
north of the Neue Kammern. Four years after his death, this was replaced by a
rustic-looking stone construction, the
Historische Mühle
, now a restaurant.
11
The Orangerie and around
April Sat & Sun 10am-6pm; May-Oct Tues-Sun 10am-6pm • €4
From the western corner of the Sizilianischer Garten,
Maulbeerallee
, a road open to
tra
c, cuts through the park past the
Orangerie
. his Italianate Renaissance-style
structure with its belvedere towers is one of the most visually impressive buildings in
the Sanssouci park. A series of terraces with curved retaining walls sporting waterspouts
in the shape of lions' heads leads up to the sandy-coloured building, whose slightly
down-at-heel appearance adds character. It was built at the behest of Friedrich IV and,
like the Friedenskirche (see p.170), inspired by architecture seen on his Italian travels.
he facade is lined with allegorical statues set in niches, such as “Industry” who holds a
cog wheel. he western wing of the building is still used as a refuge for tropical plants
in winter, and during the summer it's possible to ascend the western tower for views of
the Neues Palais and vistas of Potsdam's high-rises. he Orangerie also houses a gallery,
the
Raphaelsaal
, with copies of paintings looted by Napoleon.
The Belvedere and around
From the western wing of the Orangerie, the arrow-straight Krimlindenallee, lined
with lime trees, leads towards a Rococo
Belvedere
, the last building to be built under
Frederick the Great. It was the only building in the whole of Sanssouci park to suffer
serious war damage, but has now been restored to its former glory. A couple of hundred
metres short of the Belvedere, a path off to the left leads to the
Drachenhaus
, a one-time
vintner's house built in the style of a Chinese pagoda for the small vineyard nearby.
