June 27, 2023
A Morning in Potsdam (June 27, 2023) and then onto Berlin
Why are we in Potsdam? About 10 years ago I cycled through what had been East Germany with some German friends and on the way out of Berlin we stopped in Potsdam for ice cream. It was a totally intriguing small city with a ton of history and I had always wanted to go back and explore it. Accordingly, our plan had been to spend two nights and see a few major sites. My train booking issue reduced that to only one night, but this morning we rode through the major Sansouci complex and then stopped at Cecilianhof before riding back to Berlin (about 40 km) for a four night stay in Berlin.
Potsdam has a fascinating history. The major ruling family in Germany for almost 300 years was the Hohenzollern family who started a basic settlement on the River Sprey in Berlin in the late 11th century. The family split in two and the branch that eventually ruled Germany consolidated power and ruled from 1618. They encouraged immigration to the area from all over Europe and became the Kingdom of Prussia. The family successfully engaging in three wars ( 1866 War against Denmark, 1867 War against Austria and finally the 1871 Franco-Prussion War, collectively known as the German Unification Wars). The upshot of this warring was the Unification of Germany in 1871 with the Hohenzollern family as the head of a Monarchy. The family’s power lasted until the end of World War 1 when Kaiser Wilhelm II was forced to abdicate because Germany lost the war. In the meantime however, the family built a ton of pretty exotic palaces and castles in various places (It offends the egalitarian part of my brain thinking of all the peasants who starved due to the sucking up all the resources to build these exotic places — a bit like all the stadiums we build today for our sports teams rather than on housing or public transport or something that would help everybody, but enough editorializing….)
In Potsdam there is the Sansouci complex which consists of the New Palace and the Old Palace both of which have extensive grounds. Because of time limitations we were not able to tour either of these places but I did arrange a cycling route to allow us to ride around the grounds and at least see the palaces from outside. We then rode on to visit Cecilianhof, a smaller palace that was built by the last Kaiser’s son, Wilhem the Crown Prince. The Crown Prince was never able to take power because his father abdicated at the end the WW1 in 1918. Cecilianhof was the location of the Potsdam conference in 1945 where Stalin, FDR and Churchill/ Attlee met to figure out what to do with Germany in the post war era. The Allied powers split the entire German territory into zones: Soviet, US, French, and British, for the purpose of post war occupation but it also had the (probably unintended) consequences of creating the seeds of the Cold War. Besides dividing Germany, Berlin (which is squarely in what was East Germany) was also divided into the Soviet, American, British and French zones. (Most of the cool stuff in Berlin was in the Soviet zone.) Fairly quickly the Western zones were combined to just being referred to as the American zone since the US by then was the power in the west with Britain and France being exhausted from the war. During the Potsdam conference there was a National election in Britain which Churchill lost, so midway through the conference he was replaced with Clement Attlee, the new Prime Minister of the UK. I thought that was a fun fact: Churchill is generally so revered for standing up to Hitler - when other British leaders and countries pussyfooted around - its hard to imagine him losing an election right after the war. (Meaningless fact: He was re-elected in 1951).
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We rode back to Berlin on a portion of the Berlin Wall Trail. After the wall fell in 1989 there was an effort to create a bike trail in its place, and this effort was mostly realized with a well-marked 177 km trail. In my planning I looked seriously at doing the whole thing but settled on just riding a portion of it. There were a number of markers about people - mostly young- that died trying to cross the wall and the death strip behind the wall. On a lighter note, being able to ride all the way into Berlin on a rural feeling path was wonderful.
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We also rode by a former nuclear power plant, Kraftwerk Reuter West, on the outskirts of Berlin. Germany has now phased out all of its nuclear power plants. It decommissioned its last three plants in April of this year. When we were in Germany last year there was a LOT of discussion about whether Europe, and especially Germany, could survive the winter without Russian energy and whether that would force the Western powers to come to the table about the Ukraine conflict. At that time there was speculation that Germany would keep its last operating nuclear plants open to deal with the loss of Russian energy. In fact, the last three plants were supposed to be decommissioned in December 2022 and as a compromise , their usefulness was extended four months to April 2023. Interestingly, nobody here is talking anymore about an energy crisis. It seems like the European countries have largely figured out how to live without Russian energy.
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10 months ago
Dave: Crash Clark strikes again 🙄. Once more I chose to dump my bike thanks to a careless move on my part. Along the trail there are barriers designed to let bikes pass but not vehicles. You have zig zag around them to continue. I managed the obstacle OK, but there was a 2" gap between the dirt and the tarmac trail that I took at too shallow an angle. I was going no more than 1 or 2 mph. The front tire made it up fine, but the rear tire, burdened I suppose by my heavy panniers slid along the gap, failing to climb up the small gap. I started leaning to the left and then gravity and the weight of the panniers took over and down I went. It should have been a nothing-burger lay down of the bike seeing as I was going so slowly. However, when I unclipped from my left pedal and put my foot down on the tarmac, I stopped but the bike had just enough forward momentum to drive the nose of my saddle squarely into my thigh. Lordy that was painful and I still suffer with an ugly contusion and very sore thigh--sigh.
Anyway, we are onto Berlin!
Today's ride: 45 km (28 miles)
Total: 155 km (96 miles)
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