How to get to Potsdam from Berlin. Day Trip to Potsdam from Berlin Berlin Potsdam Train

I always try to prepare for a trip at home, think through all the nuances as much as possible in advance. And then various little things and inconsistencies will not spoil the precious rest time.

For a trip to Potsdam, a day pass is the best choice, which is valid for all types of public transport in these cities and for the train to Potsdam. At home I spent a long time studying forums about Berlin transport, including instructions with pictures on how to buy tickets from a machine. In fact, everything turned out to be simple. The main thing is to choose the right ticket It's right that you don't get fined. Travel in Germany by zone. As a rule, zones 1-2 are the city center. And we are going all the way to the suburbs, which means we need the most expensive one-day pass.

Comrades, stock up on Euro-trifles in advance! A funny incident happened to me. I'm standing in a subway passage and trying to buy a pass. But I have no change, and nothing comes of it. About 5 Germans already tried to help me, but no one had change. And at this metro station there was no ticket office, you couldn’t change it. You can go to another station and buy it at the ticket office there. Yes, but to go on the metro, you need to buy a ticket, but you don’t have change. This is such a vicious circle. I lost about an hour of precious time. Don't repeat my mistakes, please!

I went in February, it was about zero, and it was constantly raining. Picking up at the Potsdam train station at the information center free card, I figured that the distances were short and decided to walk. This was my second mistake. If you bought a travel card, why not take care of your feet? But my pass still paid off.

I hadn’t read anything about Potsdam in advance, so at least I asked for a booklet with a map in Russian, at least some idea of ​​the city. If we compare the city with Berlin, which I visited the day before, I liked Potsdam several times more. He settled firmly in my heart, right near Prague and Lviv.

I visited almost all the attractions highlighted on the map, even the Roman ruins, although they are located in the middle of a park (and I would say forests). There was a story with them too. While I was looking for them, I got lost and couldn’t even understand where I was going. There weren’t a soul of people, I was about to start crying, and then, luckily for me, a German guy walked by with a dog. I still burst into tears, poked him with my map, babbled something in English, and in the end, he showed where the exit was. Happiness knew no bounds! Guys, you should never despair, even without knowing the language you can find a way!

Since I was there in February, Sans Souci Park was partially in winter - the trees were in wooden boxes to prevent them from freezing, the sculptures were partially removed, the fountains were not working. It’s sad, of course, but even in this form the park is so charming that I can’t put it into words. Unfortunately, there was no time to go into the palace itself. In the souvenir shop the prices are so prohibitive, it’s terrible! But there is a lot of choice, and I strangled my toad and bought a magnet with a picture of Sans Souci Park for 7 euros.

I took a bus from the park to the station, otherwise my legs were already falling off. An interesting and adventurous day has come to an end. Now I even dream about Potsdam sometimes, I highly recommend setting aside a day and visiting this miracle.

One day in February, while vacationing in Berlin, Elena and her mother decided to go to Potsdam. For this boarded the S-bahn 7 train going directly to this city at the Zoologischer Garten railway station, and set off on it to the southwest.

The S7 train (you can also board it at another station on the route, not just at Zoo) runs every 10 minutes. True, on the way we had to change at the Berlin Wannsee station to another train of the same direction, S-bahn 7, standing on the next track, literally across the platform. One of the passengers, a young mother with a stroller, told us about this. The loudspeaker also warned about the need for a transfer, but we do not understand German. It was probably associated with some temporary work on the tracks. It took us about 20 seconds.

How much does it cost to get to Potsdam?

We arrived at the Potsdam railway station - Potsdam Hbf, and right there there is a shopping gallery. This could not help but delay Lenin’s mother, and she went to look at the shops. At this time Elena was waiting for her in the central hall, silently studying the Berlin Welcome Card booklet. And then a bearded man approached her and offered sightseeing tour in Potsdam, added that there is an audio guide in Russian and a discount for the Welcome Card.

When my mother left the store, after consulting, we agreed and went to the excursion bus parked at the station, where we bought a tour (15 euros per person, it is not clear whether there was actually a discount). Since there was still time before departure, we returned to the station's shopping gallery and did some shopping. We bought creams at a cosmetic store, and earrings at a jewelry store.

Sightseeing tour by bus: Dutch Quarter, Berlinerstrasse, Glienicke Bridge

The tour started at 11 o'clock. From the bus window we saw the Church of St. Nicholas, the restored city palace, a pumping station in the shape of a mosque, the Brandenburg, Hunting and Nauen Gates, and drove past the Dutch Quarter. We drove along Berlinerstrasse to the Glieniker Bridge, where we crossed the Havel River, thus finding ourselves back in Berlin, turned around and returned to Potsdam.












The Glienicke Bridge is remarkable for its history - after the division and before the unification of Germany, it divided not just the federal states of Brandenburg and Berlin, but states and even the worlds - the GDR and West Berlin. On this famous “Bridge of Spies”, arrested agents of the Soviet and American intelligence services were exchanged more than once.

Having driven along Berlinerstrasse again, we turned into " closed city» - an area of ​​Potsdam, which during the GDR period was a border area and occupied by the Soviet military and intelligence. The bus drove past nice villas and small one-story houses, built, as the audio guide said, in the 30s for railway workers, past the modern hotel Kaiserin Augusta Stiftung. It was built at the beginning of the twentieth century as a boarding school, and in the second half of the century it was occupied by the secret services.

Cecilienhof and Aleksandrovka

So we got to the New Garden and Cecilienhof Palace, where the Potsdam Conference was held in 1945 and an agreement was reached on the post-war structure of Europe. Today the palace, built at the beginning of the 20th century for the son of the last German emperor, Wilhelm II, and his wife Cecilia, is used as a museum and hotel.

The difference between the Potsdam city tour and the Berlin one, which we also bought, was the pedestrian part. On the territory of Cecilienhof, the guide took all the tourists off the bus and walked around the castle, talking about it in German and English. For Russian-speaking participants (and that was just us) there was a booklet in a binder. After walking around the palace, the group returned to the bus.

Further the route passed by the old prison, turned into a museum, away from the " forbidden city" - to Aleksandrovka, a Russian village. In 1826-1827, this small colony was rebuilt for singers of the Russian soldiers' choir, former prisoners of war, and participants in the Napoleonic wars. The audio guide told us that 2 more families with Russian surnames live on the territory of Alexandrovka - descendants of those very first settlers.

Sans Souci

Having made a circle around the Russian village, the bus brought us to Sans Souci Park (from the French san souci - “without worries”). There is the most famous palace Prussian Emperor Frederick the Great, also called Sanssouci. It was built in the mid-18th century. Nearby is the grave of Frederick, who wanted to be buried near his country house (however, the remains of the Kaiser were reburied near the palace only 205 years after his death). In addition to flowers, potato tubers are brought to his grave, since it was Frederick the Great who popularized potatoes in Germany.

The palace complex of Sanssouci is often called the “German Versailles”. There are mesh pavilions, a multi-tiered vineyard, a Chinese-style tea house, a greenhouse palace, a New Palace designed for official receptions; house with dragons (now a restaurant), landscape park.


























The audio guide on the tour bus and the live, walking guide told the tour participants about the main and New Palace, after which the tour ended, and those who wished could return on the same bus to the city center. However, Elena and her mother stayed briefly in Sans Souci to explore the park, visit the gift shop and restrooms (they are about windmill). After that we had to wait for the usual passenger bus No. 695, and at about 16:00 we arrived in the center of Potsdam - to the Hunter's Gate.

On foot: Bradenburger Strasse and again the Dutch Quarter

From there, along Lindenstraße, we reached the central pedestrian street Brandenburger Straße, connecting the Brandenburg Gate and the Church of Saints Peter and Paul. We walked along it, going into shops (mostly shoe stores) and trying to go into one of the restaurants (but unsuccessfully, since it was on the second floor, where the elevator was supposed to take visitors, but the elevator call button did not work - perhaps the restaurant was just closed).

Then we turned onto Friedrich-Ebert-Straße towards the Nauen Gate and had a very tasty dinner at the restaurant Der Klosterkeller http://www.klosterkeller-potsdam.de/. Elena's mother had cheese soup and something like jellied beef with vegetables (Home made boiled round beef in Jelly), and Elena herself had pieces of pork in bacon with mashed potatoes (The coachman´s favorite dish: Roasted medallions of pork wrapped in bacon enhanced by a Thyme sauce, served with fresh herbal mushrooms and butchess potatoes). And, of course, beer.

And I was very impressed by her photographs of Sans Souci Park, Aleksandrovka (these are several wooden huts, very old) and all the other attractions of Potsdam. True, my mother couldn’t tell me how to get there, since she was traveling with organized tour.

From Potsdam to Berlin by car

It seems to me that it is not worth renting a car specifically for a trip between Potsdam and Berlin. But if you plan to travel around Germany a lot, this method of transportation is very convenient. Moreover, they are expensive compared to most European countries, are still free. Well, gasoline costs only 5 euros, because the distance between the cities is small - 40 km. Approximately 45-60 minutes are needed for the journey. To rent a car, you need to understand which one you want, and then compare prices. There are special sites for searching for rental cars, one of them.

From Potsdam to Berlin by train

The RE and RB commuter trains and the S-Bahn take you to Berlin 24 hours a day. I recommend useful material about the German railway. There are direct flights every 10-30 minutes, so I don’t see any point in considering options with transfers. From Potsdam Hauptbahnhof to Berlin it takes 20-45 minutes, depending on which stop you get off at and which train you take.

Trains make the following stops in Berlin: Charlottenburg, Zoologischer Garten, Hauptbahnhof. And the S-Bahn stops at about 10 stops in Berlin, so I advise you to study the route carefully, perhaps your hotel will be close to one of them.

Buying tickets

Online sales for such tickets are not provided. Therefore, we buy tickets at the terminal; it is available not only at the station, but also at every metro station. I went to, returned back on the same day, plus I had to get to and from the hotel in Berlin. I already benefited from the Tageskarte day pass, but it is also valid for public transport in Potsdam, so I recommend buying it. When I was already pretty tired and left Sans Souci Park, and I still needed to get to the Potsdam train station, I was extremely glad that I had this pass.

Fare

  • One way ticket – 3.40 euros.
  • Day pass – 7.70 euros.

Conclusion

Theoretically, you can get to Berlin by bus, but in practice it is completely inconvenient, long and requires transfers. I didn’t torture myself and calmly took the S-Bahn. Well, really, there was one adventure. The next stop is displayed on the board in the carriage, I looked there periodically, but Potsdam Hbf was not written yet. And then the train stopped, and that was it! went out onto the platform. Apparently, I said something bad out loud in Russian, because a woman (our former countrywoman) came up to me and calmed me down. You just need to transfer to the next similar train, and that’s it. I didn’t understand why, but she said that this happens sometimes.

Before continuing the story about the Potsdam palace complex, let's look at the independent transfer to this town.

From here you can travel by S-Bahn and by train. commuter train. At the same time, the S-Bahn line only reaches the main railway station Potsdam Hauptbahnhof (that's what all the main stations in Germany are called) populated areas), and from there to Sans Souci you still have to walk and walk. Of course, you can use the city bus, but this will require time for transfers.

In our opinion, it is optimal to immediately take the train to the Park Sanssouci station, it will be next to the main Potsdam train station. From here it is very close to the New Palace, where you can start the excursion. Please note: you cannot get to Parc Sanssouci by S-Bahn, only by train.

You will have fellow travelers along the way. The former office premises of the New Palace now house the campus of the University of Potsdam, so, in all likelihood, both on the train and on the way to the palace you will see many German students next to you and towards you. Nice guys. They climb onto the second floor of the train, cover themselves with notes and travel, intently looking at their notebooks...

On the train next to southwest direction, you can board at several stations in Berlin. Of course, this is Berlin's main train station, Hauptbahnhof. It is located diagonally from the Reichstag across the Spree River, we have a photo above. Next, the train passes through the large Zoologischer Garten station, that is. During the Berlin Wall and cold war here was the main station of West Berlin.

You can also take the train in East Berlin, for example at Alexanderplatz station. Then your train will still pass through Central station Hauptbahnhof and past stations in West Berlin, because to get to Potsdam, you need to cross this part of the city.

In practical Germany, tickets for commuter trains and S-Bahn are the same in use, so when standing at the ticket terminal, you just need to choose a zone and not worry about the type of transport. And since Potsdam is already a distant suburb, then from Berlin zones A, B, C you need to click on the one that corresponds to the longest route length - zone C.

Although our economic news talks about deflation in the Bundes Republics, the German railways do not seem to know about it. Here, as throughout Europe, the cost of travel is public transport subject to creeping inflation. On this moment We can name the price for travel Berlin - Potsdam in the winter of 2015 - 3 euros 30 cents one way. Thus, a ticket to Potsdam and back will cost 6 euros 60 cents. If you travel in a group of no more than five people, the terminal will offer a favorable price for the whole group for a full day and for round trip travel. All the fun costs 17 euros 40 cents.

Let's summarize and bring the sequence of actions together. You buy a ticket at the terminal, validate it at the station before leaving, take the train in Berlin and go to Parc Sanssouci. Exit after the German students and move to the right of railway. It's a five-minute walk to the park and the New Palace. You might get caught along the way sightseeing bus. It picks up tourists from the train and offers an overview of Potsdam. It says on board that there is a Russian audio guide. If you have the desire and time, take a ride - Potsdam is not so Small town, it is difficult to reach all of its objects on your feet in one day.

Well, now, after we have dealt with the transfer to the German Versailles, as Potsdam is sometimes called, let's return to its palaces.

Continued >>

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