Frederick the Great's colossal New Palace faces two matching baroque palaces built for his kitchens and servants, the Communs. Since 1991 they have housed the University of Potsdam, so students now take lectures in a king's service wing.

Frederick the Great's colossal New Palace faces two matching baroque palaces built for his kitchens and servants, the Communs. Since 1991 they have housed the University of Potsdam, so students now take lectures in a king's service wing.

A small open rotunda of eight Corinthian columns that Frederick the Great raised in memory of his beloved sister Wilhelmine of Bayreuth. Inside sits her marble statue, surrounded by medallions of the great friendships of antiquity.

Frederick the Great's former deer garden, one of the earliest landscape gardens on the continent, where a four and a half metre marble Flora marks spring beside the Hauptallee.

A gilded rococo tea pavilion in the shape of a clover leaf, ringed by life sized golden figures sipping tea and making music. Frederick the Great's dream of China, built by people who had never been there.

A dreamy slice of Italy on a Prussian pond: Schinkel and Persius turned a crown prince's sketches into a cluster of villas, pergolas and a Roman bath that was never once used for bathing. Charlottenhof Palace, his summer villa, lies just a short stroll away.

A cream-coloured Italianate villa with a square tower, built for the king's cabinet councillor Ernst Emil Illaire. Persius's plans turned a plain gardener's house into a little piece of Tuscany beside the Marlygarten.

An Italian basilica mirrored in a quiet pond, built by the Romantic king Frederick William IV around a 13th-century Venetian mosaic. It is also the resting place of the king himself and of Emperor Frederick III.

A long golden hall east of Sanssouci Palace, built by Frederick the Great between 1755 and 1764 as the oldest surviving purpose-built museum in Germany. Inside, Caravaggio, Rubens and van Dyck hang frame to frame above a marble floor.

Frederick the Great's single-storey summer retreat crowns six curved vineyard terraces above the Great Fountain. The king who called it his 'place without worries' is buried on the top terrace, his grave strewn with potatoes.

A working Dutch windmill beside a royal guest palace, forever linked to the legend of the miller who dared to sue Frederick the Great. Rebuilt after burning in 1945, its sails have turned again since 1993.

A 300 metre Italian Renaissance palace stretched along the ridge above Park Sanssouci, built by the 'Romantic on the throne' Frederick William IV. Inside waits a hall of fifty Raphael copies; above, twin towers with the best view in the park.

A hidden, walled pocket of Italy below the Klausberg, laid out in 1844 for Queen Elisabeth. Water cascades past ferns and oleander to a tiny open air Roman pavilion where the royal couple dined.

Frederick the Great's last building, a Roman style viewing pavilion, crowns the Klausberg hill, while sixteen gilded dragons guard the Chinese pagoda below, now a cafe. The perfect place to end the loop with a view and a slice of cake.