Sanssouci
Frederick the Great’s summer palace sits at the top of a terraced vineyard. It is only one storey high, with an oval domed hall in the middle and a façade where atlantes and caryatids carry the cornice. The name means “without care”.
Frederick II of Prussia wanted a place where he could retreat from Berlin and the business of government. He sketched the palace himself, and Knobelsdorff built it in 1745–1747. It is a pleasure palace rather than a residence: ten rooms in a row, all on the same floor, opening onto the terrace and the garden.
The interiors are in what is known as Frederician Rococo, with gilded scrolls, flowers and musical instruments in stucco on light walls. Here the king conversed with Voltaire, who lived in Potsdam for a few years, and played the flute at his concerts. The park was extended over a hundred years with the New Palace, a Chinese teahouse and Roman baths, and the palaces and parks of Potsdam are a World Heritage Site.