Charlottenburg Palace

Sophie Charlotte, wife of the first king in Prussia, began the palace in 1695 as a summer house, and it was extended repeatedly through the eighteenth century into the largest palace in Berlin. The Porcelain Cabinet is lined floor to ceiling with over two thousand pieces of Chinese and Japanese porcelain arranged on brackets and mirrors, a form of display fashionable in the period and rarely surviving. The New Wing holds rococo state rooms by Knobelsdorff and paintings by Watteau. Bombing in 1943 gutted much of the building; reconstruction ran for decades and the Porcelain Cabinet was rebuilt from surviving pieces and records.

What you actually see

• The Porcelain Cabinet - a room lined with over two thousand pieces.
• The New Wing - rococo state rooms and a Watteau collection.
• The baroque garden - a formal garden giving way to an English park.
• The mausoleum - a small temple in the park holding royal tombs.

When to go

April to October for the park; the palace closes Mondays. Different wings have separate tickets or a combined pass. Christmas markets fill the forecourt in December.

Honest expectations

Much is postwar reconstruction after 1943 bombing. Wings are separately ticketed. It closes Mondays and queues form on weekends.

Nearby

Central Berlin lies east; the Olympic stadium is west.