In an era where the work of top architects shouts and their clients may as well be Nebuchadnezzar, it is very pleasant to find architecture you can hardly see at all. That's not to say it's not great, this low profile stuff, it's just you'd be surprised, brought up in the era of Python, Rhino, Grasshopper and other species, that there is an architecture which, if it says anything at all, rather suggests you as a human being might sit down, have a glass of wine and contemplate a menu of food rather than stare at the ceiling looking for kicks.
That's exactly what you will find at Schloss Glienicke, C.F. Schinkel's masterly C18th theme park reached as easily from Berlin (S7 to Wansee, then Bus 316 to Glienickebrucke) as it was from the Royal Palace at Potsdam. It is easily the most romantic, peaceful and easy place to hang around in as you can imagine, and the best way to enjoy it is to sit in the restaurant courtyard (converted stable block) for a couple of hours eating nice things and not bothering to look at the architecture at all. If you do so no doubt Schinkel himself would be proud, because that's what this place is for.
Now you don't have to be royalty to enjoy it, everybody can, there's not even an entrance fee. The park is populated by all sorts of follies you might stumble upon, but we are not talking Disneyland. Repose it is, repossession it isn't; all tyrants and their idiotic architects please take note.
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