I will be in London and then Berlin in early April with my wife and kids. After spending 3 days in London and 3 days in Berlin, I would like to spend a day near Berlin in some sort of small town atmosphere instead of the big city. Can you recommend anywhere within an hour of Berlin to see?
Cool places just outside of Berlin
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Potsdam with its Sans Souci castle. Unlike many other capitals, Berlin is surrounded by woods and lakes. We went to Sans Suci using the S-Bahn, and from Potsdam took a ferry for 30 or so minutes to another S-Bahn station. Not small town atmosphere, but definitely other than the big city.
My recommendation would be Stendal, an hour by train west of Berlin. A typical small town, lots of red brickstone architecture, gothic cathedal, other old churches, medieval city gates ...
www.stendal-tourist.de (unfortunately only in German)
Another vote for Potsdam and Sanssouci. (But I haven't been to Stendal yet.)
we really liked Potsdam when we visited it last September. but like kja I've never been to Stendal.
I suggested Stendal because the original poster wishes to go to a place with small town atmosphere. I love Potsdam with all the palaces and gardens, but it's not a small town. And Stendal has the red brickstone architecture, quite well preserved, which is so typical for northern Germany and the region around Berlin.
Toofah,
To me the most interesting site in Potsdam is SCHLOSS CECILIENHOF, setting for the Potsdam Conference of summer, 1945. Surprisingly, the architecture is English Tudor country style. It was built during WWI by the German Crown Prince Wilhelm who then fled into exile with his father.
Being a WWII history buff, I was really interested to see the room where Truman, Stalin, and Churchill negotiated the postwar division of Germany. The grounds are lovely too….
There's also the "New" Palace in Potsdam if you like that sort of thing. It would be helpful IMO if the OP would give a little more info than just "a small town."
This is all great info, thanks! I guess the reason that I said 'small town' is because I wanted to let my wife see something different than a big city in Germany. I haven't really been to Berlin. My wife has only 3 days in Germany and then flies home out of Berlin, so we need to stay nearby. After she leaves, the kids and I will stay another week and travel through Dresden and Munich areas. We will travel through the small town of Seiffen and possibly the Saechsische Schweiz, which are less populated. I didn't know if there was something up north that might give here an experience like.