Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: POTSDAM-THE PLAYGROUND OF THE HOHENZOLLERNS T would be as unjust to form an estimate of the Hohenzollerns or of their capital without visiting Potsdam as to form an estimate of Germany without visiting Bavaria. For Potsdam is more than "the Prussian Versailles." It represents the complement of those sterner Hohenzollern qualities which are embodied in the city of blood and iron. Cold, colorless Berlin may well be seen on the gray days of standard Prussian weather. Sunlight seems exotic there. But the characteristic charm of Potsdam is revealed only when skies are bright and flowers are in bloom. One should prepare himself for the visit by spending a while with the "History of Frederick the Great," and by studying, in the National Gallery, the pictures of Menzel, who created for our eyes the great character whom Carlyle created for our imaginations. On the morning when the traveler awakes with the prospect of a sunny day in Sans Souci, he should chasten himself, leaving his Berlin-irritated critical faculty to seek what it may devour in the city, and with a free heart come away for a day of pure pleasure in the playground of the Hohenzollerns. It is customary to visit Potsdam by rail and plunge at once into the rococo interior of the castle. But it is far better to rise early and alight at Wann- see; for a better approach is by boat, or, better still, on foot through the pines and beside the quiet waters of that string of lakes called the River Havel. One passes the Peacock Island, the home of the Great Elector's alchemist, where Frederick William III planted his famous garden of roses. It is a memorable experience to emerge from the perfume, the color, the breathless peace of wood and water, upon the magnificent sweep of road that skirts the Jungfern-See and...