Potsdam

Frederick the Great built this single-storey summer palace atop terraced vines. His grave lies on the terrace beside it next to his hounds, and because he pushed potato growing, many visitors leave potatoes on the slab. Tickets inside carry a set entry time.

A vast palace said to have been built after the Seven Years' War to show Prussia still had money. Its Grotto Hall on the lower floor packs walls and columns with shells, minerals and crystals. It caps the west end of Sanssouci Park, half an hour's walk away.

The last Hohenzollern palace, built like an English Tudor country house, hosted the Potsdam Conference in summer 1945. For it, Soviet troops planted red flowers in a star in the courtyard, replanted every year since. The round conference table remains.

In the Cold War the border ran across the middle of this bridge, and East and West swapped captured spies on it. Each side painted its own half, so even now the two halves are slightly different shades of green. A strip at the centre marks where the line ran.

In the 1730s 134 gabled red-brick houses went up to lure Dutch craftsmen to settle. These days their street floors hold cafes, antique shops and galleries. In April a tulip festival fills the streets with flower stalls.

Log houses a Prussian king built in the 1820s for a choir of Russian soldiers, now World Heritage. Houses with carved wooden trim are spread along a cross of lanes, a single one serving as a small museum. A Russian Orthodox chapel crowns the hill in front.

A large film studio opened in 1912, where Metropolis was shot. Beside the studios, still in use, a film park shows sets and stunt shows. The film park shuts for the winter and reopens in spring.

A solar observatory tower in flowing, rounded forms, designed by Erich Mendelsohn in the 1920s. It was built to test Einstein's theory of relativity with sunlight and still works as an observatory. The inside is open only on guided tours, so check dates ahead.

A pavilion in Sanssouci Park built to an 18th-century European idea of China. Gilded sandstone figures drink tea and play instruments at the foot of its columns. Inside is a porcelain display.

A museum in a rebuilt palace, opened in 2017, centred on Impressionist painting. It hangs one of the largest groups of Monet works outside France. Timed weekend tickets run out early, so buy ahead.

Frederick the Great put it up in 1770 to celebrate winning the Seven Years' War, some twenty years ahead of Berlin's namesake. Two architects each designed one face, so its two sides differ. Eastward runs car-free Brandenburger Strasse, full of shops.

A neoclassical church designed by Karl Friedrich Schinkel, its great green dome towering above the Old Market square. An outdoor gallery rings the drum below the dome, with views of the Havel and the town on every side. Many stairs lead up; take them slowly.

A twin-towered lookout Frederick William IV built on the northern hill like an Italian Renaissance villa. Left to crumble in East German times, it was saved from the 1990s by a citizens' group raising money. The towers show every lake around Potsdam at once.

Frederick William II's late 18th-century summer palace on the Heiliger See, within the New Garden. Its name comes from grey Silesian marble trimming red brick; architects rank it among the earliest neoclassical palaces. From the far shore, the lake mirrors it.

A hillside park laid out by Lenne and Puckler, sloping to the Tiefer See, with a neo-Gothic palace and towers among the trees. Flatow Tower looks out toward the waters by Glienicke Bridge. It is not the film studio, so watch the bus stop names.

Built in the 1840s where Sanssouci Park meets the town, modelled on an Italian basilica, its bell tower standing apart by the water. The apse holds a 12th-century mosaic brought from a church on Murano. Frederick William IV is buried here.