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Home - City Guide - Berlin - Excursions | ||
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Excursions For a Half Day Potsdam: One of the best excursions from Berlin is a visit to Potsdam, with its pleasant main shopping street and Dutch Quarter, as well as the nearby palaces and gardens of Sanssouci, Schloss Cecilienhof and the Babelsberg Film Studios. Information can be obtained from Potsdam Tourist Information, Postfach 601220, 14412 Potsdam (tel: (0331) 275 580; fax: (0331) 275 5899; e-mail: information@potsdam.de; website: www.potsdam.de). Haus der Wannsee Konferenz: The Wannsee Conference House is a place some Berliners would rather tourists never see. Nestling in a plush lakeside suburb in the 'Berlin Riviera' the Wannsee villa looks innocuous enough. However, walk down the pebble strewn driveway and you enter the building where leading Nazis gathered with German industrialists to mechanically plan the brutal death of millions of Jews. The building has been preserved as a museum illuminating some of the horrors that crushed Europe's Jews as a direct result of the clinical discussions of Wannsee. S-Bahn 1 or 7 to Wannsee, then Bus 114. Admission: Free. Open: Tue-Fri 1000-1800; Sat-Sun 1400-1800. For a Whole Day Spreewald: To the southeast of Berlin lies the nature reserve of the Spreewald (Spree Forest). Some 48,400 hectares (119,600 acres) of forested land interspersed with a labyrinth of 1000km (621 miles) of waterways marks the headwaters of the Spree River, which flows through Berlin on the way to the sea. This area offers a great opportunity to get out into nature, either for walks or bicycle rides in the woods or for watersports or boat tours (in punts). The best place to start a tour is from the large harbour in Lübbenau or one of the smaller ones in Lüben and Burg. Information can be obtained from Tourismusverband Spreewald, Lindenstrasse 1, 03226 Raddusch (tel: (035433) 72299; fax: (035433) 72228; e-mail: inquire@spreewald.de; website: www.spreewald.de). Spreewald is located 110km (68 miles) on the A13 from Berlin. Regional trains depart hourly from Königs Wusterhausen in southeast Berlin (journey time - 40 minutes) and roughly every 2 hours from Bahnhof Zoo and Ostbahnhof (journey time - 90 minutes and 1 hour respectively). |