he best way to see Potsdam and its surrounding Schloss parks in a single day is by guided tour. If you are staying in Berlin, Berlin Walks, an English-language service, provides a ‘Discover Potsdam’ tour which leaves from the taxi stand outside of Bahnhof Zoo (W and Sa at 9am, DM26, students and seniors DM 19). For those already in the city, the Potsdam tourist office conducts bus tours which begin at the Filmmuseum, Schlossstr. 1, and take you to all of the far-flung castles (Tu-Su at 11am, DM 39 with admission to Sanssouci castle, DM 25 without). Alternately, you could ride a bike on City Rad’s 3hr tour, which leaves from a stand 100m outside the Potsdam-Stadt train station on Bahnhofstr. (Sa at 11:30am, DM 15 not including DM 20 bike rental).
Sites featured on these tours are the Glienicker Brcke, a rendez-vous for cold-war spies until 1989; Cecilienhof, which once housed royalty and, more recently, the Postdam Conference and the signed Potsdam treaty; and the Park and Schloss Sanssouci. The Park Sanssouci is by far the most magnificent of these three. It contains over 10 varyingly themed small palaces, aswell as the crowning Schloss Sanssouci. The surrounding gardens range from Italian arbors to English hedge-rows; Emperor Friedrich Wilhelm spared no expense.
