Self-guided tour from Berlin to Potsdam. Potsdam, Germany Potsdam how to get from Berlin

I always try to prepare for a trip at home, think through all the nuances as much as possible in advance. And then various little things and inconsistencies will not spoil the precious rest time.

For a trip to Potsdam, a day pass is the best choice, which is valid for all types of public transport in these cities and for the train to Potsdam. At home I spent a long time studying forums about Berlin transport, including instructions with pictures on how to buy tickets from a machine. In fact, everything turned out to be simple. The main thing is to choose the right ticket correctly so as not to be fined. Travel in Germany by zone. As a rule, zones 1-2 are the city center. And we are going all the way to the suburbs, which means we need the most expensive one-day pass.

Comrades, stock up on Euro-trifles in advance! A funny incident happened to me. I'm standing in a subway passage and trying to buy a pass. But I have no change, and nothing comes of it. About 5 Germans already tried to help me, but no one had change. And at this metro station there was no ticket office, you couldn’t change it. You can go to another station and buy it at the ticket office there. Yes, but to go on the metro, you need to buy a ticket, but you don’t have change. This is such a vicious circle. I lost about an hour of precious time. Don't repeat my mistakes, please!

I went in February, it was about zero, and it was constantly raining. Having picked up a free map from the information center at the Potsdam train station, I figured that the distances were short and decided to walk. This was my second mistake. If you bought a travel card, why not take care of your feet? But my pass still paid off.

I hadn’t read anything about Potsdam in advance, so at least I asked for a booklet with a map in Russian, at least some idea of ​​the city. If we compare the city with Berlin, which I visited the day before, I liked Potsdam several times more. He settled firmly in my heart, right near Prague and Lviv.

I visited almost all the attractions highlighted on the map, even the Roman ruins, although they are located in the middle of a park (and I would say forests). There was a story with them too. While I was looking for them, I got lost and couldn’t even understand where I was going. There weren’t a soul of people, I was about to start crying, and then, luckily for me, a German guy walked by with a dog. I still burst into tears, poked him with my map, babbled something in English, and in the end, he showed where the exit was. Happiness knew no bounds! Guys, you should never despair, even without knowing the language you can find a way!

Since I was there in February, Sans Souci Park was partially in winter - the trees were in wooden boxes to prevent them from freezing, the sculptures were partially removed, the fountains were not working. It’s sad, of course, but even in this form the park is so charming that I can’t put it into words. Unfortunately, there was no time to go into the palace itself. In the souvenir shop the prices are so prohibitive, it’s terrible! But there is a lot of choice, and I strangled my toad and bought a magnet with a picture of Sans Souci Park for 7 euros.

I took a bus from the park to the station, otherwise my legs were already falling off. An interesting and adventurous day has come to an end. Now I even dream about Potsdam sometimes, I highly recommend setting aside a day and visiting this miracle.

Berlin... My childhood dream! How many times have I dreamed of getting to this wonderful city, but something always distracted me. Well, the time has come! We spent several days in Berlin on our own. But Berlin took over and became one of the biggest childhood travel disappointments...

Disappointments will be discussed in detail in the appropriate section. And here is a report on our independent trip to Germany.

Preparing for a winter trip to Germany began, as usual, with booking cheap tickets for the New Year holidays. Low-cost airline - the already familiar Ryanair, departing from Riga. We came across air tickets from Riga to Berlin at a good price: and from that moment everything started rolling 🙂 As you can see from route, we visited three cities in East Germany: Berlin, Potsdam and Dresden.

Moving to Latvia

Since the flight to Berlin was from Riga, we had to somehow get there. Usually, if we take cheap low-cost tickets around Europe from Riga/Warsaw/Vilnius, we go there by Ecolines buses. Cheap and cheerful, and one night (give or take) on the road. This time we decided to diversify our trip. We got to Riga by blablacar. The road from Moscow took 17 hours, the Latvian border guards, as always, were not known for their efficiency. We stood there for about six hours. My advice is to take a bus, if possible: there is a separate lane for them at the border, and all procedures will take one and a half to two hours, and not five, like by car. In general, having started from Moscow at 6 am, we arrived in Latvia around 10 pm, already local time. If it weren’t for the long wait at the border, we really enjoyed our first trip with blablacar - inexpensive, warm, comfortable, and the company we chose was excellent.

• The Latvians have clamped down on the multivisa 🙁 The consul was not impressed with my five multivisas, work in a tour operator in the Baltic, multiple entries and exits across the Latvian border, and issued me a visa for the duration of the trip.
• The slowest border guards in the world
• Next: Latvian border guards do not put the entry stamp neatly on the side to leave room for other stamps in this multivisa (as Finns, Estonians, Poles do - in general, everyone else), but sculpt it in the middle of the page, and even vertically. Then it is difficult to put other entry stamps on such a page, which wastes precious space in the passport. Every time, Karl!
• And also, bad adventures begin every time in Riga. Either the bus will be late, then it turns out that there are no seats on it that we have reserved (and this happened), or the flight will be delayed.

This same time, when we, tired, arrived in the Latvian capital at 10 pm, it turned out that the bank card was blocked due to a transaction of several euros for payment in an unfamiliar place (a hostel in Riga), there was not enough cash in euros for anything - We intended to withdraw money from an ATM or even pay cashless if possible, but we couldn’t call the bank, since my SIM card also went into the red due to a thoughtlessly sent SMS to friends. Nick does not have roaming enabled. As a result, we could not top up the balance because the account was frozen, and we could not unblock the account because the phone was in the red. So I don’t like adventures in transit Latvia. But you can’t argue: Riga is a beautiful city.

At night we wandered through the snow-covered streets of Riga and ate dumplings in a cafe.

We stayed in a hostel (the culprit of blocking the card) for mere pennies.

Flight Riga - Berlin

In the morning we took minibus No. 22 from the bus station to Riga Airport. Flight Riga - Berlin. Ryanair sets baggage restrictions, so check the baggage rules in advance: take one small bag/backpack and a medium-sized suitcase/large backpack as hand luggage. We were already familiar with these measures, so there were no problems. It is also important to have a printed air ticket with you, otherwise you will have to print it at the airline counter for either 30 euros or 50. In general, it will cost more than a ticket. If everything is ok with your hand luggage and ticket, then you can relax further, since both the service and the board are quite decent. In Berlin we arrived at Berlin Schonefeld Airport (SXF).

From Schönefeld Airport you can get to Berlin in half an hour directly by subway. Schönefeld Airport belongs to zone C, the ticket can be purchased right there in the terminal. Trains to Berlin run frequently, every 10-15 minutes. Berlin Schonefeld Airport Station:

From here we got to the Ostkreutz station we needed and disembarked safely, reaching the Holiday Inn Berlin City East Side hotel on foot. The hotel is located near the gallery of the same name (the same Berlin Wall), stretching along the Spree River.

The hotel itself is a good four. I managed to book it for pennies using work contacts. Near the hotel there is the Mercedes Benz Arena and the following offices:

Some hard workers were constantly working in these offices in the evenings. For the Germans, the beginning of January (with the exception of 1.1 and seemingly 2.1) is normal working days.

On our first evening in Berlin we walked to the famous burger joint Burgermeiste r on the other side of the Spree via the Oberbaumbrücke bridge. The burgers turned out to be really very tasty, I was surprised by the local soda Mischmasch (we called it Mish-Myash) - a mix of cola and Fanta. The downside is that the place is tiny, more like a kiosk, so the seats are standing room only and, in fact, you eat right on the street - that is, there is no place to sit down or warm up. In the summer it’s probably great, but in early January it’s not so great :)

The next morning we had planned free tour of Berlin. That is, not completely free, of course 😉 At the end of the excursion, the guide always asks everyone to chip in for the benefit of further achievements (so-called donations). Usually they give 5-10 euros per person. Either way, it's cheaper than a regular group tour. There are such free excursions in almost every city, so it’s worth surfing the Internet in advance. We signed up in advance for a free tour of Berlin. People react to such offers much more actively than to a group excursion costing, say, 15-20 euros, so such “free” excursions pay off by 100 percent or more. Some dropped out after half the excursion and did not pay.

In fact, on this January day the weather in Berlin was very frosty. Temperature -15 with high humidity - brrrr!

We leave the hotel. In the morning, Berlin opened up to us in all its industrial glory:

Just kidding, of course. Is this beauty? But this is what most of the city looks like. (To be fair, it is worth noting that this is East Berlin. The post-Soviet legacy is taking its toll...) But I have never seen such melancholy even in the Russian outback. Nine-story panel buildings, factory chimneys, fences of some kind everywhere, wire strung... Everything is gray and gloomy. Graffiti, of which there is a lot, only enhances the overall effect of hopelessness.

We are waiting for the train.

The sightseeing tour of Berlin begins - here is the meeting point with the guide, at the Brandenburg Gate. Despite the gloomy weather and frost, everyone breaks into groups and patiently waits for the excursion to begin. At our planned time (11:00 a.m.), there were about 60-70 freebie lovers, and we had to split into three groups.

I'm very unhappy with how cold it is :)

The tour route around Berlin runs from the Brandenburg Gate past the Memorial to the Dead Jews, Checkpoint Charlie, Hitler's Bunker, and stretches along the central streets. Here everything is not so sad - the streets are neat in a European way, but gray and cold.

Here and there in Berlin architecture one can trace elements of self-expression:

It all ends on Museum Island Berliner Dom, according to tradition, a donation to the guide for the service provided.

After saying goodbye to the group, we went into the Berlin Cathedral itself and went up to the observation deck. The inside of the cathedral is warm and beautiful:

And here is the view of the city from the observation deck of the Cathedral. This is already the center of Berlin, its western part.

Yes, photo from my phone, yes, the weather is gray and gloomy. But this does not change the fact that the city is really ugly. Where are the streets that inspire creativity? Where are Rammstein and other German handsome men roaming the streets here? There is none of this. Just taps, dullness and hopelessness.

We are not fans of beer, but, being thoroughly frozen, we decided that we simply needed to have a snack, fortunately there is a Brauhaus Lemke beer garden within walking distance (in the Hackeschen Markt area). It is located under a crossing. We chose this brewery in advance - a good place to appreciate German cuisine and arrange a beer tasting in Berlin. Giant portions of sausages (both Berlin and Thuringian), and Alsatian pie, and a sample of six types of German beer were provided to us. However, we are not connoisseurs, so we indifferently tried everything, but remained unconvinced: we don’t like beer. Entrance to the beer garden:

And, in fact, Alsatian pie - in other words, pita bread with filling on top.

We walk to the hotel. Examples of folk art on every corner and fence:

We are already back in East Berlin. This is what the entrance to the Berlin metro looks like:

East Side Gallery and German hockey

Stretches along the Spree River. In the 90s, artists painted it, making the main idea of ​​their paintings freedom, peace, and the wrongness of what happened earlier. Mostly the pictures are positive, but there are also some that are out of the ordinary, but still classics :)

And dark, scary stories:

That evening in Berlin we suddenly found ourselves at a hockey game. Having gone out for a walk before going to bed, we decided to come closer to the Mercedes Benz arena and look at the posters. We were immediately attacked by a couple of men at the entrance. It turned out that it was the game, the first period, and they were trying to sell their tickets. As a result, we bought two tickets from one of the men for 5 euros (at the original cost of 23 euros per ticket). The Berlin Eisbären played with the Cologne club Haie.

Hockey here is a family game, many come with their wives and children. At the same time, beer flows like a river. What is curious is that instead of new and new plastic containers, it is poured into the same glass all the time - that is, a person is given a plastic glass of 0.5, and he walks around with it all the time and, if necessary, fills it with beer from the seller.

Here is the arena itself:

The next morning you left for Potsdam, included in our Germany itinerary. This is a standard destination for all holidaymakers in Berlin - Potsdam is close, the drive from Berlin is short and there is a lot to see. The journey to Potsdam by metro takes half an hour, to zone C. Despite its proximity to Berlin, Potsdam is already the capital of the federal state of Brandenburg.

I won’t say much about Potsdam, since we didn’t see everything there. Definitely The best time to visit Potsdam parks is in spring or summer. As a last resort - in the fall, but not in the winter :) Still, Potsdam is a city of parks. In January and in Berlin. and it was very cold in Potsdam, so out of everything we managed to see a little of the city itself, the An-Souci Palace (without going inside), the Lustgarten park and the nearby and obscure things under the snow. City map:

The train from Berlin goes directly to the Potsdam Hauptbahnhof station - this is the main station of Potsdam, quite large and decent. We walk from the station to the old part of Potsdam. Snow everywhere:

The pedestrian street Brandenburger Straße leads directly to the local Brandenburg Gate, behind which the park area begins - there are many cafes, souvenir shops, and ATMs.

There is an interesting tradition of getting rid of Christmas trees in Germany - they are simply taken out onto the sidewalk/road and that’s it. A special service comes by and cleans everything up.

Showcases and decorations left over from the holidays:

Along one of the park alleys we go to Sans Souci - the most famous palace of Frederick the Great. It seems that we are the only ones in the entire park.

Geese and ducks graze near the fountain in front of the Sanssouci Palace, asking for crackers. After all, there are people besides us! A couple was feeding the ducks, which surrounded them in a dense flock.

Staircase in front of the palace and vine terraces:

In general, after wandering around the park for an hour and a half, we realized that there is nothing special to do in Potsdam and Sans Souci in winter. All beauty is hidden under the snow. We didn’t go into the art gallery itself, we walked to the windmill, had lunch in the city and headed to the station to get from Potsdam to Belin by train.

At the station in one of the kiosks we saw the following:

We were already in Berlin at 7 pm, so we decided to continue the Potsdam story by visiting Potsdamer Platz and Sony Center.

We get off at Berlin Central Station. From here you can walk past the Reichstag and the Brandenburg Gate to the square in about 20 minutes. At the beginning of January, a giant Christmas tree was installed at the station. The next day the tree was already removed.

We walked past the Reichstag building to the south, towards Potsdamer Platz. Do you see the glowing glass dome? We decided to get under it on the last day of the trip.

The famous Brandenburg Gate:

Shopping center near Potsdamer Platz:

On Potsdamer Platz there are pieces of the Berlin Wall, for some reason covered with chewing gum.

Potsdamer Platz itself, compared to the rest of Berlin - both East and West - looks quite modern. I heard that it is criticized both for its architecture and for the fact that it does not fit into the panorama of the city. For me, it’s quite cute and lively, everything is beautifully illuminated. Anything is better than sadly wandering around the Eastern part of the city.

Under the dome, which connects several buildings, there is a cinema, Apple and Sony stores, restaurants, and cafes.

Travel from Berlin to Dresden

If you can get to Potsdam by metro, then from Berlin to Dresden you need to take a train or bus. The bus to Dresden will be cheaper, so we bought tickets from the bus carrier berlinlinien.de a couple of days before our trip to Germany. There were plenty of tickets, flights every half hour or so, costing 6 euros one way.

In two hours a bus from Berlin took us to the Old Station in Dresden. Dresden is already the state of Saxony. The city lies on the Elbe River, dividing it into two parts - the Old Town of Altstadt and the more modern Neuestadt. In the Old Town, as usual, all the most interesting things are located.

We spontaneously went to Hygiene Museum (Deutsches Hygiene-Museum), inspired by the name, but fell into the realm of anatomy and disease. I expected to see types of soap, washing powders and other things, so I was surprised :)

Such a museum will be of interest to doctors, medical students and anyone interested. However, we were also stuck for a couple of hours. In one of the halls there was a thermal imager, so to speak, live photography.

About two hours later, despite the fact that we had seen enough of all sorts of kranken and other ailments, we got hungry and went out to the Old Town of Dresden.

Old Dresden Center very handsome. Despite the fact that in fact we only stayed there for a few hours, we managed to get a feel for it. Dresden is definitely worth spending two or three days. Maybe next time? Moreover, there are a lot of interesting things in the area.

The setting winter sun peeks out from behind the Frauenkirche:

This church is one of the most famous symbols of the city. Like the entire center of Dresden, it was completely destroyed in 1945. The townspeople collected the remains of the structure piece by piece and pebbles, marked it and preserved it. In the 1990s, it was decided to rebuild the Frauenkirche.

The only thing I didn't like about this wonderful city was that there were too, too many noisy bus-class tourists. Dresden is a popular point on the map, which is often combined on bus tours with Munich, Prague, and Budapest. Therefore, it is filled with people bawling in Russian, noisy crowds rushing to cafes, shops, pushing everyone in their path in search of souvenirs :) Along the streets of Altstadt there are such souvenir shops with all sorts of rubbish. Many inscriptions are in Russian. There are also signs saying “Russians only for 1 euro” or something like that :)

Zwinger. We didn’t go to the museums; we admired the ensemble from the outside and from the inside park.

Probably everyone has heard that Dresden was almost completely destroyed during the Second World War. Despite the fact that the city was rebuilt and its center is still beautiful, the destruction was horrific. Those interested can visit a panorama installation telling about what Dresden looked like after the 1945 raids. We didn’t have time - the panorama opened just a couple of weeks after we left Germany. So I highly recommend it - it should be:

Sightseeing buses around Dresden depart from Dresden Castle Square (like the popular Hop-on Hop-off), we purchased tickets for one of these routes. It's getting dark:

Evening bus to Berlin only at 9 pm. We go to the bus, which this time departed from another station in Dresden - to Neuestadt. Bye, Dresden!

Walking around Berlin

The last day in Berlin was filled to capacity with plans: we wanted to see everything that we didn’t have time to see or saw poorly. It had warmed up significantly, the temperature in Berlin on our last day of the trip was about 0. We started the day with a walk around the center of Berlin: from Checkpoint Charlie to the Berlin Wall panorama. A detail that constantly caught my eye: there is a lot of graffiti and posters in the city. All the walls are covered in posters! Moreover, not individually, like ours, but 4-8 pieces glued in a row, just to be sure :)

- just a tourist attraction, nothing special. A couple of men dressed in greatcoats stand and clown around for the amusement of tourists. Tourists take pictures with them for money, but they can also do it on the sly.

The next point in your walk around Berlin is visiting Berlin Wall panoramas. It's a temporary installation (similar to the one in Dresden mentioned earlier) and it's really cool. The artist creates and glues a 30-meter panorama relating to some moment in the life of the city.

The action depicted in the panorama takes place on an autumn day in 1980, when the wall still divided Berlin into two parts. The installation is accompanied by sound effects; you can climb onto the balcony and look from above. The author creates similar projects all over the world.

Curry-Wurst Museum

Very close to checkpoint Charlie and the panorama is Museum of German sausages Curry Wurst. Sausages are actually a cross between a wiener and a frankfurter :) Not to say it’s fire, but in general it’s okay, a kind of analogue of a hot dog. They actually sell them all over Berlin. You can buy an entrance ticket to the museum for 13 euros, I think, with a tasting of three types of wurst curry:

You can sit on the sausage sofa:

And try yourself as a seller of these sausages:

Legend has it that the inventor of these sausages carried ketchup in one hand and curry in the other as she walked down the stairs. When she tripped, it all fell apart and got mixed up. Voila - the recipe is ready! It’s an interesting museum, and you can have a snack, so I also recommend visiting it.

While we were walking around Berlin, it was almost dark. sky above Holocaust memorial:

We went to the museum in memory of the dead Jews near the memorial. There are no photographs from there. Next on our walk around Berlin, we planned to visit the Ritter Sport museum (more precisely, the store).

Oh, this is real chocolate heaven! I perfectly understand the girl with the puzzled expression on her face - her eyes really run wide from so much chocolate. There are sweets, regular bars, giant chocolate bars, and a cafe on the second floor with cakes a la Ritter Sport.

Although we don’t have a sweet tooth, we still left the store with two huge bags. And this is the little man Ampelmann - the symbol of Berlin:

As a souvenir for the naive tourist, you can often see the supposed remains of the Berlin Wall - everything is beautifully packaged and painted to please the eye.

Reichstag at night

The final point in our East German voyage was visit to the Reichstag. You don’t have to pay anything for this, the main thing is to leave a request on the Bundestag website for a certain time, which with a 99% probability will be confirmed. Well, or they will confirm it at another time. While we were waiting for our entry into the Reichstag, we had a snack at a restaurant at the station. We forgot a bag of sweets from Ritter Sport there, galloped back (luckily it’s 10 minutes from the Reichstag to the train station in Berlin) and almost blew our entry into the Reichstag. But everything worked out 🙂

An audio guide is provided free of charge. Inside under the Reichstag dome:

I don’t think we’ll be returning to Berlin anytime soon. But next in line are southern Germany, Munich, Neuschwanstein Castle. So we are not saying goodbye to Germany. Ciao!

Potsdam is located in eastern Germany, on the banks of the Havel River and several lakes, just 20 km southwest of Berlin, and is the capital of the federal state of Brandenburg.

Formerly the residence of the Prussian kings, Potsdam is known primarily as a city of palaces and gardens, which did not go unnoticed by UNESCO, which in 1991 gave the entire city the status of a World Heritage Site.

How to get to Potsdam

Suburban S-Bahn trains run from Berlin to Potsdam every 10 minutes. Regional trains depart from Berlin-Hauptbahnhof, Berlin-Zoo and Berlin-Charlottenburg stations in Berlin, and go to Potsdam-Charlottenhof and Potsdam-Sanssouci stations in Potsdam.

Trains depart every hour from Potsdam to Berlin Schönefeld Airport.

Transport

VBB provides public transport services. You can get around the city by buses and trams.

Bicycles can be rented from the CityRad rental office located at Bahnhofspassagen next to the train station. station., for 11 euros per day or in Potsdam per Pedales, located at the Griebnitzsee S-Bahn station for 8-12 euros per day.

Shopping

The Dutch Quarter is home to more than 70 antique shops. Once a week, markets open on Bassinplatz and Weberplatz squares where you can taste local national dishes. Depending on the season, these could be cherries from Werder, pike perch caught in the Havel River, red beets (Teltower R?bchen) or the famous asparagus from Belitz.

Kitchen

Traditional cuisine can be enjoyed in the Klosterkeller restaurants at Friedrich-Ebert-Strasse 94; Loft at Brandenburger Strasse 30/31 or at Zum Fliegenden Holl?nder, located in the Dutch quarter at Benkertstrasse 5.

Entertainment, excursions and attractions in Potsdam

Potsdam is home to a large number of UNESCO World Heritage sites - a total of 150 sites built between 1730 and 1916. These are the parks of Sanssouci, New Garden, Babelsberg, Glienicke and Pfaueninsel, together with the palaces located on their territories, as well as the Zakrow palace and park with the Church of the Savior in Zakrow, the Lindstedt palace and park, the Russian colony of Aleksandrovka, the Belvedere on Pfingstberg, the Imperial Station and the observatory in Babelsberg Park.

The Old Market is considered the historical center of the city. And the New Market of Potsdam 17-18 centuries. represents one of the best-preserved Baroque squares in Europe. Of the city fortifications in Potsdam, three gates have survived: the small Brandenburg Gate, the Nauen Gate and the Hunting Gate. Potsdam houses the greatest collections of paintings, exhibited in the Sanssouci Gallery. Most of the collections are made up of works from the Baroque, Mannerist and Renaissance eras, and Italian and Flemish artists are also represented.

Palaces of Potsdam

The palace and park ensemble of Sans Souci ("carefree") is considered a symbol of the city and is the most important attraction of Potsdam. There are several architectural objects located on the territory of the park - this is a summer palace built in the Rococo style in 1745-1747. and the new palace in the Prussian Baroque style, built in 1763-1769, is considered the largest palace in Potsdam. In addition to the palaces, on the territory of Sanssouci there are temples, pavilions, numerous sculptures, a botanical garden and a historical mill. The Orangery Palace, located on the hills between Klausberg and Sanssouci Palace, was designed in 1851-1864. in the Italian Baroque style. On the territory of the palace and park ensemble “New Garden” there are the Marble Palace in the classicist style, the Cecilienhof Palace, a small pyramid, a sphinx at the Egyptian portal of the greenhouse and an obelisk. On the territory of the Babelsberg Park, notable are two palaces and the Flatow Tower with a height of 46 m, which offers stunning views of the city. In Babelsberg itself there is the Weaving Quarter and the Friedrichskirche Church, built in 1751 for Bohemian Protestants. Lindstedt Palace was built in the style of late classicism in 1858-1860. In Potsdam there is a Dutch quarter, built specifically for settlers in 1733-1740 by order of King Frederick William I. Now the quarter is limited by the Nauen Gate and the Church of Peter and Paul.

Events

Notable is the Fleet Parade, which traditionally marks the beginning of the season.

The annual Night at the Castle event welcomes everyone with delicious food, theatrical performances and fireworks. And on the night of Potsdamer Erlebnisnacht, more than 50 restaurant owners and 180 merchants invite visitors on an unforgettable stroll through the city's best restaurants, bars, cafés and shops.

The distance from Berlin to Potsdam is 36 km. Getting from the capital of Germany to the capital of the federal state of Brandenburg is quite simple: by train, commuter train, rented car, taxi or with a companion. Trains run almost every 10 minutes from all railway stations.

In this material we will tell you in detail how to get to Potsdam from Berlin on your own.

Train Berlin - Potsdam

We are talking about commuter trains, in other words, S-Bahn trains, which serve the Verkehrsverbund Berlin-Brandenburg (VBB) zone, which includes Berlin and Brandenburg.

As of 2019, the Berlin S-Bahn consists of 16 routes and 166 stations. In general, you can leave from any of them, but we will take the most popular tourist area as our starting point - the Brandenburg Gate, where the Tiergarten park originates.

The station is called Brandenburger Tor.

Destination station: Potsdam Hauptbahnhof. You need an S7 line. But it doesn't go through Brandenburger Tor, so here you take line S1 to Friedrichstraße station, where you change to S7 to Potsdam. If this is too difficult, the walk from the Brandenburg Gate to Friedrichstraße train station is about 10 minutes (1 km).

A trip from Berlin to Potsdam by train - from Friedrichstraße to Potsdam Hauptbahnhof - takes 40 minutes and costs 3.40 euros(stations in Brandenburg are zone C). Tickets are purchased from vending machines at stations and are composted there.

Electric trains run around the clock with the shortest possible intervals.

Convenient travel planner on the Berlin rail network - sbahn.berlin. Here you can enter your departure and arrival stations, see when the next train leaves, how long the trip will take and how much it will cost.

Train Berlin - Potsdam

From the Friedrichstrasse station, as from the Main Railway Station, you can also travel by regional trains marked RE (RegioExpress) and RB (Regionalbahn). They go a little faster than electric trains - 30 minutes, and the ticket costs the same - 3.40 euros.

The lines we need are RE1 and RB21.

Do not forget to validate your ticket, otherwise you will have to pay a large fine. Train inspectors visit regularly and are unforgiving.

We remind you that you can plan your trip using the sbahn.berlin planner.

You can buy a ticket on the website, which specializes in European railway routes, as well as by searching for transport tickets around the world.

From Berlin Airport to Potsdam

The easiest way is to order a transfer - see the information below.

But you can do it yourself, because it’s cheaper.

Finding a travel companion

It is also possible to get to Potsdam with a driver companion. Surely you will find a driver who will agree to give passengers a lift - of course, for a reasonable fee. The largest community of travel companions is Blablacar.ru. To contact a user, you need to register, there is nothing complicated about it.

Finding travel companions on BlaBlaCar

You can also book a tour from Berlin to Potsdam with a private guide. Guides registered in our project offer both individual and group excursions.

Unified ticket search OMIO

The Omio service allows you to compare all available public transport options by cost and travel time. Here you will find tickets for trains and intercity buses in the selected direction. Thanks to a convenient search, you will be able to find the best offer.

One day in February, while vacationing in Berlin, Elena and her mother decided to go to Potsdam. For this boarded the S-bahn 7 train going directly to this city at the Zoologischer Garten railway station, and set off on it to the southwest.

The S7 train (you can also board it at another station on the route, not just at Zoo) runs every 10 minutes. True, on the way we had to change at the Berlin Wannsee station to another train of the same direction, S-bahn 7, standing on the next track, literally across the platform. One of the passengers, a young mother with a stroller, told us about this. The loudspeaker also warned about the need for a transfer, but we do not understand German. It was probably associated with some temporary work on the tracks. It took us about 20 seconds.

How much does it cost to get to Potsdam?

We arrived at the Potsdam railway station - Potsdam Hbf, and right there there is a shopping gallery. This could not help but delay Lenin’s mother, and she went to look at the shops. At this time Elena was waiting for her in the central hall, silently studying the Berlin Welcome Card booklet. And then a bearded man approached her and offered her a sightseeing tour of Potsdam, adding that there was an audio guide in Russian and a discount for the Welcome Card.

When my mother left the store after consulting, we agreed and went to the excursion bus parked at the station, where we bought a tour (15 euros per person, it is not clear whether there was actually a discount). Since there was still time before departure, we returned to the station's shopping gallery and did some shopping. We bought creams at a cosmetic store, and earrings at a jewelry store.

Sightseeing tour by bus: Dutch Quarter, Berlinerstrasse, Glienicke Bridge

The tour started at 11 o'clock. From the bus window we saw the Church of St. Nicholas, the restored city palace, a pumping station in the shape of a mosque, the Brandenburg, Hunting and Nauen Gates, and drove past the Dutch Quarter. We drove along Berlinerstrasse to the Glieniker Bridge, where we crossed the Havel River, thus finding ourselves back in Berlin, turned around and returned to Potsdam.

The Glienicke Bridge is remarkable for its history - after the division and before the unification of Germany, it divided not just the federal states of Brandenburg and Berlin, but states and even the worlds - the GDR and West Berlin. On this famous “Bridge of Spies”, arrested agents of the Soviet and American intelligence services were exchanged more than once.

Having driven along Berliner Strasse again, we turned into the “closed city” - an area of ​​Potsdam, which during the GDR period was a border area and occupied by the Soviet military and intelligence. The bus drove past nice villas and small one-story houses, built, as the audio guide said, in the 30s for railway workers, past the modern hotel Kaiserin Augusta Stiftung. It was built at the beginning of the twentieth century as a boarding school, and in the second half of the century it was occupied by the secret services.

Cecilienhof and Aleksandrovka

So we got to the New Garden and Cecilienhof Palace, where the Potsdam Conference was held in 1945 and an agreement was reached on the post-war structure of Europe. Today the palace, built at the beginning of the 20th century for the son of the last German emperor, Wilhelm II, and his wife Cecilia, is used as a museum and hotel.

The difference between the Potsdam city tour and the Berlin one, which we also bought, was the pedestrian part. On the territory of Cecilienhof, the guide took all the tourists off the bus and walked around the castle, talking about it in German and English. For Russian-speaking participants (and that was just us) there was a booklet in a binder. After walking around the palace, the group returned to the bus.

Next, the route went past an old prison, turned into a museum, away from the “forbidden city” - to Aleksandrovka, a Russian village. In 1826-1827, this small colony was rebuilt for singers of the Russian soldiers' choir, former prisoners of war, and participants in the Napoleonic wars. The audio guide told us that 2 more families with Russian surnames live on the territory of Alexandrovka - descendants of those very first settlers.

Sans Souci

Having made a circle around the Russian village, the bus brought us to Sans Souci Park (from the French san souci - “without worries”). The most famous palace of the Prussian Emperor Frederick the Great, also called Sanssouci, is located there. It was built in the mid-18th century. Nearby is the grave of Frederick, who wanted to be buried near his country house (however, the remains of the Kaiser were reburied near the palace only 205 years after his death). In addition to flowers, potato tubers are brought to his grave, since it was Frederick the Great who popularized potatoes in Germany.

The palace complex of Sanssouci is often called the “German Versailles”. There are mesh pavilions, a multi-tiered vineyard, a Chinese-style tea house, a greenhouse palace, a New Palace designed for official receptions; house with dragons (now a restaurant), landscape park.

The audio guide on the tour bus and the live, walking guide told the tour participants about the main and New Palace, after which the tour ended, and those who wished could return on the same bus to the city center. However, Elena and her mother stayed briefly in Sans Souci to explore the park, visit the gift shop and restrooms (they are near the windmill). After that, we had to wait for the regular passenger bus No. 695, and at about 16:00 we arrived in the center of Potsdam - to the Hunter's Gate.

On foot: Bradenburger Strasse and again the Dutch Quarter

From there, along Lindenstraße, we reached the central pedestrian street Brandenburger Straße, connecting the Brandenburg Gate and the Church of Saints Peter and Paul. We walked along it, going into shops (mostly shoe stores) and trying to go into one of the restaurants (but unsuccessfully, since it was on the second floor, where the elevator was supposed to take visitors, but the elevator call button did not work - perhaps the restaurant was just closed).

Then we turned onto Friedrich-Ebert-Straße towards the Nauen Gate and had a very tasty dinner at the restaurant Der Klosterkeller http://www.klosterkeller-potsdam.de/. Elena’s mother had cheese soup and something like jellied beef with vegetables (Home made boiled round beef in Jelly), and Elena herself had pieces of pork in bacon with mashed potatoes (The coachman´s favorite dish: Roasted medallions of pork wrapped in bacon enhanced by a Thyme sauce, served with fresh herbal mushrooms and butchess potatoes). And, of course, beer.