Travel Via Baltica Nordica - Germany

SUMMER 2005
Name of the tour: 125 years Suburbia
Starting point: Rangsdorf or Potsdam/Teltow
Ending point: Potsdam/Teltow
Total length: 70 km
Suitable number of days for the tour: 1
Traveling by: Car, bicycle

Good to know:
Guided (bicycle) "suburbia"-tours can be arranged by www.potsdam-by-bike.de

What you can experience:
Living next "Kaisers": From 1872 the village of new Babelsberg near Potsdam was developed to a new suburb for Berlin's chosen few high society members along the lakeside of Griebnitzsee and Kaiser's carriageway to railway. Its height ended with the Nazis and the emigration or assassination of the Jewish and Nazi-opponents among the inhabitants.The Potsdam conference revitalised some famous houses as residences of Truman, Churchill, Stalin for some weeks in summer 1945 but after that a long sleep covered the area due to the iron curtain along the Griebnitzsee. Now, 15 years after the German union some of the former glamour returned.

Suburbia for the dead: A great lack of green zones made the big Lutheranian parishes in Greater Berlin in 1906 to develop the South-West cemetary in Stahnsdorf, last home of many famous Berlin artists. Closed with the iron curtain in 1961 a smooth restauring has started presenting a very rare aspect of suburbia.

Suburbia of the poor and rich: originally clearly divided between upper class residents and poorer people, Kleinmachnow today presents an enormous variety as a catalogue of suburbia: orgininal and renewed dwelling of 85 m²-Sommerfeld-residences, old villas with remarkable histories and different styles of new architecture in Kleinmachnow.

Where you can stay:
Hotel Griebnitzsee Potsdam, Marriott Hotel Teltow/ NH-Hotel Kleinmachnow

Where you can eat:
www.potsdamerweinkontor.de
www.meierei-potsdam.de

For more information:

www.potsdamtourismus.de
tel.: +49 331 275 580