Potsdam.

Just outside Berlin, a short way down the river, sits the town of Potsdam. While Berlin was the seat of government, Potsdam was where the Hohenzollern kings actually wanted to be — away from the capital's noise and grime, in a second residence built around a string of palaces and gardens.

We meet at Hauptbahnhof and take the train out to Potsdam together.

This tour follows Friedrich Wilhelm I, the "Soldier King," and his son Frederick the Great through the 18th century, and looks at how the conflict between father and son ended up shaping European history. We walk through Potsdam's old town, past the reconstructed City Palace, through the picturesque Dutch Quarter, and past Potsdam's own Brandenburg Gate, before arriving at Sanssouci Palace, which you're free to explore at the end.

The Potsdam tour can also be extended to include Cecilienhof Palace, where the 1945 Potsdam Conference sealed Germany's fate for decades to come, and a walk across the Glienicke Bridge — the Cold War's famous "Bridge of Spies."