Glienicke Palace

Schloss Glienicke stands at the far southwestern edge of Berlin in the Wannsee area, right on the Potsdam border and only steps from the famous Glienicke Bridge, the Cold War spy-swap crossing. At its core is a manor house of 1753 that Prince Carl of Prussia bought in 1824 and had Karl Friedrich Schinkel rebuild from 1825 into a neoclassical summer palace in the style of an Italian villa. After Schinkel's death his student Ludwig Persius carried on the work from 1840. The garden designer Peter Joseph Lenné shaped the grounds, turning the hilly Havel shoreline into a composed landscape of sight lines, paths and framed views.

The appeal lies in how the architecture, the garden and the art play off each other. Prince Carl was a passionate collector of ancient stone fragments, known as spolia, which were worked into the facades and garden buildings with the help of the sculptor Christian Daniel Rauch. Scattered across the grounds are ornamental structures such as the Klosterhof with genuine Byzantine and Venetian pieces, the Casino by the water and the Lion Fountain. Since 1990 Schloss Glienicke has been part of the UNESCO World Heritage Site "Palaces and Parks of Potsdam and Berlin," and it is administered by the Prussian Palaces and Gardens Foundation.

Today the palace houses a museum whose surviving Schinkel furniture and objects show how the Prussian court actually lived. In the former head gardener's quarters, a gardening museum was added in 2006 documenting the history of Prussian garden art. Visitors can walk the park freely, enjoy the views over the Havel and plan a continuation toward the Pfaueninsel or the Jagdschloss Glienicke hunting lodge. Check current hours and admission for the palace with the foundation before you go.