Sanssouci Palace, Vineyard Terraces & Great Fountain
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.
About this place
Sanssouci is the heart of the whole park and the reason it exists. Frederick the Great sketched the idea himself: a low Rococo pleasure palace with just twelve rooms, set on the crest of a hill he had already turned into a terraced vineyard in 1744. Georg Wenzeslaus von Knobelsdorff built it in only two years, between 1745 and 1747, and the king spent his summers here without his wife, his court or his worries, hosting philosophers like Voltaire at his famous round table in the oval Marble Hall. Below the palace, 132 steps descend through six terraces lined with glazed niches for figs and vines to the parterre with the Great Fountain, whose jet Frederick never saw rise because his waterworks failed. Only in 1842 did a steam engine finally push it 38 metres into the air. On the top terrace, beside the graves of his greyhounds, lies the plain slab under which Frederick was finally laid to rest in 1991, exactly as he had wished two centuries earlier.
Key facts
- 12 rooms — The entire palace has only twelve rooms, the king deliberately wanted a small private retreat rather than a court residence
- 132 steps — The central staircase climbs through six curved vineyard terraces from the Great Fountain to the palace
- 1991 year — Frederick the Great was finally buried on the top terrace on 17 August 1991, 205 years after his death
📍 Ehrenhof 3, 14469, Potsdam