My love-hate relationship with Berlin's weather

For my last full day in Berlin, I had made plans to go out to Potsdam. Potsdam is about half an hour by train from the centre of Berlin, and is full of old parks and castles. I made out a planned walking route and set out at about 10 o'clock.

My Flickr set for Berlin is still up:

https://www.flickr.com/photos/81692166@N05/sets/72157645070653730/

The weather had deteriorated since I arrived in Berlin. It was just starting to spit with rain, and I was seriously contemplating not going out today, but I decided to brave the weather and "just do it".

My planned path first took me through the gardens of Sanssouci Castle, an 18th-century summer residence castle for a former King of Prussia, and is considered one of Germany's rivals to Paris' Versailles. The entired garden complex is mostly manicured, with some sections of wild grass growing. There are a pair of small castles at the western end, which I went past first. It should be illegal to need a jumper in summer, but here it is:

Too bloody cold!

Like the other different gardens in Potsdam, the park is dotted with all sorts of castles and parks, including an Orangerie, the Chinese House, a Picture Gallery and a botanical garden. Some of my favourites from the gardens and castle:

My favourites from Sanssouci

For lunch today I wound up at a cafe inside an old windmill. The charge of €3.50 for a sandwich was a little steep, but it still tasted quite nice, although a little dry:

Today's cooked ham sandwich

Before I got to my next stop, I came across a small park which I thought would be worth exploring. Turns out there's a massive belvedere, called the Belvedere auf dem Pfingstberg. I didn't go in, but the outside itself looked amazing:

Just another little park in Berlin

I then headed across and up to the Cecilienhof Palace, which is on the grounds of the Neuer Garten. The palace looks just like your larger version of a typical German country house, with a couple of manicured gardens thrown in. It was made most famous as the meeting place of Churchill, Stalin and Truman, among others, in 1945. The garden itself is the same as many other European gardens - the main attraction is supplemented by heaps of other buildings. This garden also had an Orangerie, as well as a gothic library, palace kitchen and an icehouse:

My faves from the Neuer Garten

I was really disappointed in the weather today, but occasionally you get something good out of it. This absolute cracker of a photo I got while hanging around the Marble Palace, taken across Heiliger See towards Vorstadt:

My favourite photo from today

My final park in Potsdam today was the park surrounding Babelsberg Castle. The castle itself is barely recognisable as a castle, such is the extensive maintenance going on, and there's not a whole lot in the park compared with some of the other places - there's a couple of towers and castles, and a manicured garden, but not much else. It was basically deserted, too - I saw maybe four people in over an hour:

Some of Babelsberg Park

Having seen the park, I then caught a bus back into Potsdam, where I had a pizza in a restaurant inside an old water tower, before heading back to Berlin for the night:

Pizza in the Wasserturm

That's all for now, I'm not planning on doing much tomorrow before my afternoon flight to Vienna.