Exploring Frederick the Great's Summer Residence "Sanssouci" in Potsdam

May 24, 2007
by Jeralee Shotkoski

On Thursday we rode the train to Potsdam, a little city outside of Berlin. We toured the Sanssouci castle of Fredrick the Great. Sanssouci was the summer castle for the Prussian King. He not only had one castle on the grounds, but two and several other large buildings that were decorated in a similar elaborate, elegant manner.

As we walked into Sanssouci, we had to put on soft large slippers over our shoes, so the marble floors were not worn down by people walking on them. We were also given an audio recording in English of what each room meant and details about the paintings and furniture.

Walking into the vestibule of this castle, we were taken back by the fine details of all of the gold that decorated this room. There were gold decorations from floor to ceiling among the marble walls and pillars. Come to find out, each room had lot of gold details all over the walls and ceilings. Frederick the Great was inspired by Venetian and French decorating, which explained the elaborateness of the decorating in each room. Each room was different from the silk wallpaper to the marble or multi-wood flooring, and each was magnificent in its own way.

Next we walked through the garden between the New Palace and Sanssouci. We took photos of the statues of the gods and goddesses and fountains that were interspersed throughout the garden and made the walk so beautiful. In the garden lies the Chinese Teahouse. Frederick the Great was also fascinated with Eastern influences. Therefore, he created an elaborate teahouse surrounded with sculptures of what he thought people in Eastern Asia might look like. When looking at the statues up close, most had Western features with Eastern Asia dress, so this gave us a good idea of the thought process behind the great king and his artists.

After making our way through the garden, we arrived at Frederick's New Palace. This one was larger that Sanssouci and of course, even more magnificent than the first. Walking around in our large slippers again, we toured the large halls and bedrooms filled with chandeliers and gold sculptures and artwork over the walls and ceilings. The most memorable room was the Grotto Hall.

This room is entirely decorated in seashells, with dark marble flooring. All of the artwork and sculptures, such as the flowers and dragons, on the walls and ceiling consisted entirely of different kinds and colors of seashells. We were amazed at the fine details that were put into this room and tried to imagine the time it must have taken to carefully place each shell into the artwork.

There was also a large dining hall in this castle with the fine china that Frederick the Great had designed himself. The ceiling was decorated with a large mural with, of course, gold surrounding it. It was truly amazing to see the details that were put into such a large castle and each room was carefully crafted to match what it was used for. We were also surprised at how cool it was in each of these castles. It was a hot day outside, but large amounts of marble in these buildings, helped keep the rooms cool and fun to walk through.

After an entire day of going through castles and taking hundreds of pictures, we took the train back to our hotel and rested for the rest of the night, excited for the next day when we were going to tour the Volkswagen theme park in Wolfsburg.