The Sicilian Garden inside Sanssouci Park holds maybe a dozen people at once, tucked behind a hedge wall that most tour groups walk straight past on their way to the palace steps, which makes it one of the easier corners of Germany to sit alone with a book and not be bothered. Museum Barberini, at your own speed Alone, you can actually stand in front of a painting as long as you want.

A model volcano erupts on schedule inside a former airship hangar on the edge of Potsdam, and the row of eight-year-olds watching isn’t scared, they queued twenty minutes for exactly this. That’s the Volcano Arena stunt show at Filmpark Babelsberg, and it sits inside a working film lot that has been in continuous use since 1912. Filmpark Babelsberg The park mixes an actual studio backlot with a seasonal theme park: a medieval village set built for Die Geschichte vom kleinen Muck, an interactive 4D action cinema, and live motorcycle jumps and fire stunts.