palace tagged posts

In Learning German 2003, Europe On  09/08/2003  One comment

A short trip from Berlin is to spend a day in Potsdam visiting palaces and gardens. Our first stop was the Sanssouci Palace (Schloss Sanssouci). We did a tour (in German) in the interior of the palace visiting many rooms. It is like others palaces I have already visited, something unreal for me, exaggerated and exuberant.

From there we walked on the beautiful gardens to the Chinese tea house (Chinesisches Teehaus). Once more; exuberance. The house is surrounded by golden statues. We continued to visit the Roman baths (Römanischer Bäder). It is incredible to imagine how they lived here. Everything it is so pompous that looks like it lacks life, that it is really cold and distant.

We got late to the new palace (Neues Palais), it closes at 5pm. Since I was tired I lay down on a branch in the shade and waited for Lorena. She went walk around the palace to see its architecture.

By dusk we walked to the lake to see the marble palace (Marmorpalais) and the Dutch village...

In Europe, Eastern Europe 2002 On  08/08/2002  No comments

I arrived in the train station by the end of the afternoon, it was like getting downtown São Paulo. I went to the underground part trying to find a place to get money. There, it was dirty. There were street sellers everywhere, lots of people in a hurry, others observing, a little suspicious for me. The police was agitated, I think something had happened, because they were walking from one side to another, unquiet. I went to the closest hostel I could find. It was a little messy and dirty. I was tired to try to find another place, so I stayed there.

Next day, it was cloudy and raining. I walked all over town, for about 6 hours. I started in “Pest”, the cathedral, opera, commercial town. Then I crossed one of the bridges to “Buda” and walked by the river. I visited some Turkish bathes. The city seamed to be beautiful but it had no glitter, it was opaque. Maybe because it was raining and the days were gray...