We will be traveling with friends this summer and will be repeating a visit to Berlin that we did a couple of years ago. We are hoping that we could do a day trip outside of Berlin that might be of interest. We did Sans Souci on our last visit. Doe anyone have any suggestions of where to go and perhaps something special we might not have seen in Berlin? We did the museums and the Bundestag.
We will then be heading to Dresden again but I am looking forward to seeig the museum again.
Thank you.
Alison

Not exactly a day trip out of Berlin, but we enjoyed taking public transport to Charlottenburg, wandering around the gardens, and after a nice lunch at a local restaurant, taking the boat back along the Spree into central Berlin.

The end of the trip takes you past the Reichstag etc so if you've already done the boat trip round central Berlin, it might not be so interesting.

here are a lot more ideas:

http://www.slowtravelberlin.com/10-g...s-from-berlin/

I haven't done any of them, but some look interesting. And there is a lot more to Potsdam than just Sans Souci.

You might have overlooked some interesting places in East Berlin. A walk along the Karl-Marx-Allee from Alexanderplatz to Frankfurter Tor gives you a good idea of how the DDR wanted to present itself. The Treptower Park houses the Russian War Memorial, a superb exercise in Soviet propaganda.
When the weather is fine, a walk along the Landwehrkanal gives a totally different impression of the city.

Take public transport to visit the most unusual, simple but striking holocaust memorial in Berlin. It's in Moabit, a close-in suburb.A taxi ride would also do it for you.

It's the little-known or advertised memorial to the "deportee", showing several sculptured, roped victims herded aboard a box car (artist's rendering of the infamous transports to the death Kamps). It will knock the legs out from under you! My wife and I were speechless and we were the only people there at the time.

Moabit district, at the corner of Levetow and Jagow Strasse...on the grounds of a Nazi-destroyed Kristalnacht synagogue. "the night of the broken glass", November 1938, when most of the synagogues of Berlin and other German cities were set on fire by hoodlum gangs of Nazis.

see pics below

https://picasaweb.google.com/stuartt...lin2005Edited#

AlisonMary:

Photos of the aforementioned memorial begin at #57...also take a look at the Wannsee pics further down the page of pics. It's close to Potsdam (same train)...see the TV flick
"Wannsee Conference" with Kenneth Branagh...chilling rendition of what I see as the most penetrating look at the sick Nazi mind.

Lutherstadt-Wittemberg is a neat old town - known for Martin's Luther rabble rousing and alleged nailing of demands to church door - and many Luther-related places - a short enough train trip from Berlin south.

https://translate.google.com/transla...e/&prev=search

Alison:

For your reference, this is the Wiki brief notes on the Wannsee flick "Conspiracy"

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conspiracy_(2001_film)

Cottbus (nice central square with an interesting pharmacy museum, and the Schloß and Park Branitz on the outskirts.

https://www.flickr.com/photos/mksfca/9417903728 and subsequent pictures.

Lubbenau and weird punt trips - for a very unusual adventure hop trains just south of the Berlin megalopolis to Lubenow - where by the train station you can take small boats powered by standing punters - like in Cambridge - the usually hefty man stands up and propels the boat thru the system of small canals by pushing off the bottom with his long pole.

Come on a weekend to see many Germans really enjoying this for them largely drunken outing - can bring aboard your own beer or buy it and Schnapps at strategic dock pubs en route - many of the German men had prodigious beer bellies it seemed and guzzled the stuff right down - but all had a merry attitude and would break out into song at certain points.

You stop at one place to stretch your legs and buy more beer from some proper bars.

To me this was one really weird but so sweet!

I could nor tried to keep up with the German guys booze-wise or would not have been able to stand up to get off the boat!

https://www.google.com/search?q=lehd...HaxLACIQsAQIGw

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ejNla4nZRSY

Sachenhausen is a conceentration camp/memorial not far north of Berlin by train - if you want to see a grim camp remains with gas chambers still visible head there.

https://www.google.com/search?q=Sach...w=1745&bih=868

Only the floor of the gas chambers are visible according to various web sites.

http://www.scrapbookpages.com/Sachse...asChamber.html

Take the ICE train to Leipzig. It's just over an hour.

I second the recommendation for Leipzig.

How about a day trip to Poland? It is about an hour from Berlin by train - see a different - very different country- than Germany - euros gladly accepted at stores, etc. Take your passport. Join Germans flocking over the border for cheap booze, food, etc.

Go to Ravensbruck. This was the concentration camp for women. It has a very different aura to it than Sachsenhausen, Dachau or Bergen Belsen. Have been here twice and each time it just does something to me.

http://www.ravensbrueck.de/mgr/index.html

Presently reading the very intense book about Ravensbruck.
"If This is a Woman" by Sarah Helm

Track 17 is a very moving memorial to visit in Berlin with not many visitors though.

Elaborate on Track 17 memorial in Berlin please - thought I knew all of them but that one sounds well not nice but interesting.

How does one reach Ravensbruck from Berlin by public transports?

Danke!

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Berlin-Grunewald_station

»How does one reach Ravensbrück from Berlin by public transport?«
There is an hourly Regionalexpress from Berlin Hbf to Fürstenberg (taking one hour). From the railway station it looks around a 20-minute walk.

Thank you so much for all of your suggestions I really appreciate your help!

Schwerin north of Berlin has a beautiful castle:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schwerin_Palace

The fastest train connection is 1:51. You will change trains in Ludwigslust where you find another splendid castle. So, two castles in one daytrip.