Potsdam-Sanssouci, Ferry, Cathedral, Carmen

Sanssouci Palace - Potsdam, Germany

I didn't take these pictures. It was too cold and rainy to get the camera out and they didn't let us take pictures inside. Roland tried to sneak a picture and this is how it turned out:

On our last day in Berlin we rented a car with a GPS (great way to travel), changed the language to English and set off for the countryside.  First stop was Potsdam where we toured the Sanssouci Palace and had a wonderful lunch (I plan to do a food post on Lean to the Sun soon!). We spent the afternoon driving from one little berg to another. It was beautiful with springtime flowers and fairytale towns each built around a church and a bakery. 

We were just driving where ever the GPS told us to when suddenly we found a river in the road! 

We waited excitedly for the ferry and Roland paid the nice ferry man. There was a language barrier but Roland just held out a handful of euros and the man took what he needed.

 I like this picture because it looks like Roland is driving on water and you can see the GPS showing us on the river.

 It was a cold, rainy, windy, day. Perfect for touring in a car. The thing about the car tour is that we were able to see things that don't make it into a Travel Guide. We happened upon little villages just living their normal, incredibly interesting lives.

We drove back to Berlin and zipped around the parts of town that Roland had missed and parked right in front of the Cathedral Berliner Dom.

Not my picture - we were there during the daytime. But you can see the picture I took in the previous post - it is in that riverboat video too.

It was the largest Cathedral I had ever been in. There was an orchestra rehearsing for an upcoming show and I video taped it and then erased it! Ack! So I quickly took this tape but I mostly missed the orchestra:

Roland's favorite part of the Cathedral was the crypt, of course.


We returned the rental car and got ready to see Carmen. When we were in Beijing last year we went to see a Kung Fu show that was highly hyped and kind of a bust so I was worried that maybe the opera Carmen might turn out the same way - amateur-ish. No need to worry. It was beautiful, extremely professional, with a packed house full of fancy dress Germans. Probably one of the great performances of my lifetime.



It was a wonderful end to a wonderful trip.
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Did you know the taxi drivers in Berlin drive Mercedes? Yup.