Charlottenburg: the baroque palace and its garden
The long royal facade, the formal garden behind it, and a Picasso collection across the road. This is a Claude-drafted route awaiting the editor's walk.

1. Richard-Wagner-Platz
The closest U-Bahn and the start. Walk south-west towards *Spandauer Damm* and the palace forecourt opens up ahead — a wrought-iron gate, a courtyard, and the long ochre front behind it.

2. Schloss Charlottenburg
The largest *Schloss* (palace) in Berlin, begun in 1695 for Sophie Charlotte and grown wing by wing for two centuries. You can tour the rooms, but the free pleasure is the facade and the green copper dome — stand in the courtyard first.

3. The formal garden
Walk through to the back and the baroque parterre unrolls — clipped hedges, a long carp pond, then looser English woodland beyond. Free to enter, almost empty by mid-morning. Follow the pond north.

4. Belvedere teahouse
A little three-tiered teahouse at the garden's northern edge, built 1788 as a royal retreat and now showing Berlin porcelain. Even if you skip the porcelain, it's the prettiest building in the park and the turning point of the loop.

5. Mausoleum
Tucked in the trees on the way back — a small Doric temple holding the marble tombs of Queen Luise and others, lit through blue glass. Sombre and exact. Open seasonally; peer in even when it's shut.

6. Sammlung Berggruen
Across the road from the palace, in a domed pavilion: Heinz Berggruen's Picassos and Klees, hung at a human scale you never get in a blockbuster museum. The *Bröhan-Museum* next door has the Art Nouveau and Deco if you've time. Closed Mondays.

7. Sophie-Charlotte-Platz
Walk south down *Schloßstraße*, lined with stucco apartment houses, to the U2 station that ends the loop. A straight, quiet street that lets the palace settle behind you.

Charlottenburg: the baroque palace and its garden