The best waterfall hikes and walks in Ferbitzer Bruch

The steam engine house in Potsdam, often referred to as the “mosque,” is an extraordinary structure that combines engineering history with oriental-looking architecture – a real eye-catcher in Park Babelsberg.

Magnificent structure on the Teltow Canal

Beautiful hunting lodge 🏰 right on the water and in a small park - worth seeing 🔝👍🏻😉‼️

You'd think a steam power plant wasn't a place for strolling. And yet it stands there as if it had stepped out of an oriental fairytale—with turrets, battlements, and a chimney that stretches so delicately into the Havel idyll, as if it never wanted to disturb it, but only quietly participate. The Steam Engine House in Babelsberg Park is not an engine house. It's a romantic misnomer. Not only steam was generated here, but also a certain idea of splendor: King Frederick William IV didn't want a tubular structure with a soot-covered edge, but a building with poise. So, in true Prussian style, he let aesthetics triumph over function. And so the building not only pumps water, but also imagination into the mind: Some call it a mosque, others a fairytale castle. But nobody calls it an engine house. Too banal. Those who approach do so either on foot – along one of the park's gently winding paths – or from the water, on the excursion steamer that chugs by like a nostalgic salute to the leisure culture of the 1980s. And then it stands there. Wide, tranquil, defiant – yet playful. The long chimney is an exclamation mark against boredom.

In 1963/64, the Berlin Senate commissioned Max Taut to convert the hunting lodge into a youth meeting place. Because the previous access road and main entrance were now located in the Klein Glienicke restricted area, he relocated the entrance area to the garden side with a two-story, bay-like, glazed extension.[3] From 1964 to 2003, the palace was used as a youth meeting place. In April 1997, the founding conference of the Berlin Institute for Critical Theory took place there. Since 2003, the Berlin-Brandenburg Institute for Social Pedagogical Training has used Glienicke Hunting Lodge. In addition, the free capacity and accommodation are also offered to other educational institutions for conferences, seminars, and workshops. On March 31, 2003, the south wing of the palace burned down. The fire was caused by a cable fire. Since the castle had no fire detectors and the water pressure from the ring system of hydrants was not high enough, extensive damage was caused, which required extensive restoration work.

The view of the historic bridge from the palace gardens is wonderful. During the GDR era, this area was a restricted area.

The Tudor style of Babelsberg Castle is more beautiful to me than Sancoussi

The Gerichtslaube (courts' porch) was part of the old Berlin City Hall in the 13th century and was demolished when the new City Hall was built in 1871. Emperor Wilhelm I received the porch as a gift, and he had it rebuilt in Babelsberg Park on the Lennéhöhe. The Gerichtslaube originally represented a Gothic porch from the second half of the 13th century on the medieval Berlin City Hall and was extensively rebuilt using some of the original elements. The two-story, square brick pavilion is at ground level with an open hall in which four cross-vaulted bays arch around the central pillar. The central pillar is decorated with figurative stucco capitals from the 13th century. The upper floor features a reticulated vault on a Renaissance column. On the southwest buttress sits a grinning brick bird, which refers to the former Berlin pillory.