Starting at the south end of the park, by the gazebo (the Gotisches Bibliothek) and plaque that described all the things to see there, we walked along the edge of the Heiliger See and checked out the Marmorpalais, and passed this pyramid in the middle of a field with some Dutch-looking houses (according to the official Potsdam website, these are called the Höllandisches Etablissement) behind it.  According to my Let's Go Germany, the pyramid and a "Greek Temple" in the Neuer Garten were used to store food.  The Marmorpalais is a large, mansion house mostly made of marble, right on the edge of the Heiliger See, with cool front lawns that had fountains.  I think it now acts as a museum since when we stepped inside, there were admission rates posted and postcards being sold.  Schloß Count:  1.  We followed this little grassy track around the park and finally found Schloß Cecilienhof, which is the place I wanted to visit the most when I first visited Potsdam.  Schloß Cecilienhof is the place where the Allied leaders met for the post-World War II Potsdam Conference and signed the treaty that divided up Germany.  As always, there were admission rates posted on the walls and postcards being sold, but we voted against going in since we wanted to see as much of Potsdam as we could, so we wandered around the Schloß' gardens (the lawn in the middle of the courtyard had a big red star in the centre -- nice touch, I thought), peeped in windows when we could and saw lots of old, rich-looking furniture, and took lots of photos in the gardens and in front of the Schloß. Schloß Count:  2.  Then we picked up a map of Potsdam and decided to go to Schloß Sanssouci next.  After a bit of an argument on where to find the bus stop, we followed a bunch of older people who looked like they knew where they were going to the bus stop.  The bus came and people got on and so did we.  We found the ticket machine and I asked the driver what kind of ticket we needed to buy to get to Schloß Sanssouci so he suggested an AB zone ticket.  However, when we tried to buy our tickets, the machine (1) kept stating the wrong price for the tickets, charging us about a mark more than it stated on the front of the machine, and then (2) decided to stop working altogether.  This nice German man (who I thought was American, since his English has no accent at all) came up to us, just as our patience was running out and we were starting to get all snappish, and tried to help us with the ticket machine and after a few more tries and punching the buttons more aggressively, we finally got our tickets.  By that point, we were already halfway to Jägertor, where we had to change buses to get to Schloß Sanssouci.  Even though I was having trouble with the ticket machine, I still managed to look out of the windows and see some sights.  Apart from having a lot of schlößer, Potsdam also has a lot of Tors.  We passed this massive medieval looking archway, called the Nauener Tor, which was very pretty but sort of hard to get a picture of when you're in a bus, and another one called Jägertor, and a small cream-coloured Brandenburger Tor, which is sort of a smaller version of Berlin's one. 

When we got to Sanssouci, it was raining pretty hard and we were greeted by this classical musician in costume playing some tunes on his violin.  The inside of the schloß was packed and stuffy so we decided to browse the bookstore, which was equally packed and stuffy, went out into the semi-circular courtyard and took some photos with the Ruinenberg in the background, and then wandered into the gardens which had a lot of nice sculptures, a nearby windmill called the Historische Mühle and adjacent buildings like the Bildergalerie (portrait galleries) and the Neue Kammern (new treasury, I think).  The gardens were on several terraced levels so we went down the stairs, checked out each level and reached the fountains at the foot of the stairs, then we went back up and looked inside the Bildergalerie for a second. Schloß Count:  3.

Then we left Sanssouci and caught the bus back to the Brandenburger Tor, where I split off from Kitty and Bojan and walked hurriedly down Brandenburgerstr. to the Kirche St. Peter und Paul in Bassinplatz so I could maybe catch a mass.  Unfortunately, there was none but there was a wedding going on, so I just stayed in the back and had some quiet time, then waited for Kitty by the gate of the church because we agreed to "meet by the gate".  After a few minutes of waiting, I realized that she probably meant the Brandenburger Tor, so I walked back down Brandenburgerstr. (picked myself up a chicken döner along the way since I was dead hungry -- those things are choice but messy to eat!  I tried to order it in German but gave up halfway... good thing the guy at the counter humoured me) and saw her at one of the shops along the way.  Apparently, Bojan went to the church to look for me.  Anyway, somehow, we all reconvened, walked down Brandenburgerstr. and towards the Hauptbahnhof.  At some point during my walks down Brandenburgerstr., I saw a shoe store and spotted a pair of Arizona style Birkenstocks, which are usually close to C$100 in Vancouver, but were selling for DM60 (or C$40) in Potsdam.  That got me drooling and gave me a new mission during my stay in Germany:  get a pair of Birkenstocks! 

Anyway, we walked the ~2 kilometres back to the Hauptbahnhof (we still had our heavy backpacks with us) really really slowly, and every time we saw a sign saying "X.X km Hauptbahnhof" we cheered up.  We passed the Nikolaikirche and the obelisk and the Filmmuseum on the way back, but I was too pooped to take photos of them, and by that time I was kind of saturated with all the old buildings I could handle.  I was super tired, a little grumpy and glad to get back home where I didn't have to lug around a heavy backpack, so we made it to the Reisebüro in the Hauptbahnhof, bought our Wochenende Ticket and headed home.  On the train ride back, there was a super cheerful family who were fun to watch (the dad kept pulling faces at his little son, who was wearing an "Ottawa" jacket), a military guy who was drinking a large-ish bottle of beer but tried to hide it somewhat, and Kitty and Bojan were trying to figure out the notes for the tune for the on-train announcements.  I, on the other hand, was bored and sleepy.