An omonous trip to the summer palace.

1^st Full Day in Berlin... I spent mostly outside of Berlin.  We took the train to a small town just outside of Berlin called Potsdam to see the summer palace of Frederic the Great... and the less known side of the Brandenburg gate (not nearly as historically important or as pretty as the famous half).

There are many beautiful buildings that are either next to old crumbling communist buildings or that are next to (or part of) construction. 

I vaguely remember seeing photos of this palace and the gazebo in an art history book, but it didn't make much of an impression.  All of the buildings on the grounds are painted in this beautiful Naples Yellow (my favorite shade in my goash  paints)  and there are hundreds of sculptures all over the grounds.  Every building is inspired by the Romans, or the “Orient”.   Below you can see the palace vinyards (they grew a lot of the grapes behind glass so that they don't freeze.

At one point today the sky rather suddenly rumbled and turned a dark grey.  Heavy cold rain burst and we ran for cover in a structure that I thought was rather squarely hideous, Alex thought it was “tasteful” .  Artistic differences aside we both agreed that the gardener who continued to water the flowers in the middle of the downpour was hilarious.

Taking photos inside the palace (on the tour) was somewhat forbidden... so I kept the flash off and took a couple on the sly... I must try to find some photos of my favorite room.  Most were decorated in gold fillagree and somewhat poorly done Rococo paintings (with the exception of two that I think were actual Watteau's) .  The final room was decorated in carved cherry wood sculptures of over-sized flowers, parrots, monkeys and birds, all painted with full color.  This final room was a guest room with a bed sitting in a wall niche.  I wonder how creepy it could have been to wake up in the middle of the night to catch a carved monkey in the side of your vision.  

Tomorrow we are going to a Bach concert... what else?  We shall see... It's supposed to rain so probably something somewhat indoors.

 Internet is somewhat slow, so photos will be a little sparse for a while... Plus, the Z button is where the Y should be... it's trippz.