At dinner last night, our tour guide gave us all an overview of the next 2 weeks, which will takes us to 6 countries altogether: Germany, Czech Republic, Austria, Hungary, Slovakia, and Poland.
This morning we visited the San Souci Palace in Potsdam, built by Frederick the Great as a summer palace in the 1740's. From the extravagant gazebo at the entrance, to the elaborate decor inside, this place is completely over-the-top!
One room has a statue of Frederick with his two dogs. He was devoted to them and insisted that everyone address his dogs as "Madam" and "Monsieur". They are buried with him on the palace grounds.
On display is an Andy Warhol painting of Frederick the Great. It may be my imagination, but I think this looks like George Washington. Maybe it's the hair style!
After lunch we drove through Berlin for a chance to see many notable sights. To do Berlin justice, we'd have to spend a couple of days here, but this afternoon we were able to get a good sense of this city with its interesting past. The Berlin Wall, which divided East from West from 1961 - 1989, along with Checkpoint Charlie, were highlights for Bill & I.
The Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe fills a huge square in front of the American Embassy.
We had a couple of quick photo ops at the Brandenburg Gate and the Reichstag, Germany's parliament building.
In case you're wondering about the title of this post, today we had our hottest temperatures of our trip so far -- 93.2 degrees Fahrenheit! This is unusually hot for this time of year here, but it is par for the course for Bill & I. So often when we travel we experience "unseasonal" weather . . . unseasonably wet, unseasonably cold, unseasonably foggy, etc . . . so, this unseasonable heat comes as no surprise!
No comments:
Post a Comment