Today we began using our rail pass & took a 40 minute train trip to Potsdam, a very significant area in the last 2 centuries of German history. Once there we joined a tour & were driven around the area with some stops. The most interesting one for us was Schloss Cecilienhof which was the place where Winston Churchill, President Truman & Joseph Stallin met in July 1945 to plan the organisation of Europe following the end of the war with Germany. Also, Truman announced that America now had an atom bomb & planned to use it on Japan to bring about the end of the war in the Pacific. Churchill had to leave the conference half way through as he had just lost the British elections & was no longer Prime Minister! It was a fascinating place set in the most peaceful grounds by a river. We also visited several castles belonging to the German Royal family who were deposed in 1918.
The village of Potsdam is very pretty & we enjoyed our lunch there. Next we caught the train back to Berlin & (on the recommendation of our Potsdam tour guide) we travelled to an area where some of the Berlin Wall from the Cold War era is still standing. It was very interesting & graphically showed the effect of the wall dividing the city. Lots of history lessons today & giving the other side of some of the stories we heard in Russia.
