Private Day Tour of Wannsee and Potsdam from Berlin

This tour was a great day away from the energetic immediacy of Berlin. Potsdam is a beautiful, quiet town that had us wishing we had stayed there a night or two. We had a driver named Singha (sp?) and a separate guide named Luca. Both were impeccably professional, and as a guide Luca was personable and engaging, the kind of guy you wanted to spend the rest of the day with chatting about history and all things Germany and Europe. The area is beautiful, and it's great to see neighborhoods -- albeit unreachably high end neighborhoods -- of immaculate German homes stunningly renovated after the Wall came down. Strolling the grounds of Sanssouci and Cecilienhof is a bucolic balm to the frenetic bustle of Berlin. The history is fascinating, and the soul is rewarded. We loved this excursion from Berlin, and it is a high point of our brief stay in this amazing area. I highly recommend this tour even if you only have a couple days in Berlin.

I like to leave my reviews based more so on my guide as lets face it Sansouci Potsdam and the palace grounds are amazingly beautiful, Wannsee Villa was very interesting and also scenic, but what sets this apart is that you're paying for a private tour and the guide can make or break the day. Our private tour was provided our guide, Josh, and our driver was Kadir. These two made our day fantastic! I can't say enough about these guys. We had such a great time that we extended our tour an hour and paid the nominal fee. Josh is extremely knowledgeable and could have his PhD in German history if he went back to school, he's that good! What made the day so great was that Josh and Kadir work seamlessly together as Josh planned our day, Kadir was always where he was supposed to be with the car. This was helpful as I was travelling with my 78-year old Dad, so we never found ourselves backtracking to the van. You can't go wrong with selecting this tour, I had lots of questions and Jo, the tour operator, answered all of them quickly. She was amazing! Josh's insight when visiting the Potsdam Conference was both relevant and valuable as I didn't know a whole lot about it other than the famous photo taken in the garden. Fascinating morning spent there! He was also helpful guiding us through the Wannsee Villa exhibit. The house is beautiful, and disturbing when you think what was planned there. You can also find yourself suffering from information overload as there's a ton of information about the holocaust, night of the long knives, major players in the Nazi regime, etc. Having just come from Krakow touring Auschwitz-Birkenau, we didn't need to see more of the same, so he was able to move us through the exhibit pointing out things that were unique to Wannsee (rooms to the right once you walk through the entry). We appreciated this as it allowed us time to walk the grounds, and yet stay on track for the day. I would have no hesitation booking this tour again, it was organized and flowed at apace that was totally manageable! (Josh budgets time for lunch at Sanssouci)

Thomas our guide was A and really put what happened in Wannsee and Potsdam in great context. For the military history buff this tour is a must. Made a special stop at the site of the 1936 Olympics where Thomas provided fascinating background into the German psyche and culture of the times. Grounds at Sansouci were closed to normal traffic yet he went out of his way to ensure we didn't miss the experience of walking through the spacious paths and seeing the beautiful palaces and waterfalls. This was one of the major highlights of our entire week in Berlin.