The Brandenburger Vorstadt is Potsdam's most atmospheric residential neighbourhood — a grid of streets between the Brandenburg Gate and the Neuer Palais lined with late 18th and early 19th-century villas, many of them now used as embassies, institutes, and bed-and-breakfasts. The scale is quiet and leafy, the architecture handsome without being grandiose, and the streets feel genuinely lived-in rather than preserved for tourists.
The district is the natural place to stay if you want to walk to Sanssouci Park — the Luisenplatz and the park's main entrance are a five-minute walk from most of the neighbourhood's hotels and guesthouses. The streets around Brandenburger Strasse have a handful of good cafes and restaurants, and the weekly market at Brandenburger Strasse is a good place to pick up local produce. In the evening, when the day-trippers from Berlin have gone home, this part of Potsdam has a pleasantly small-city atmosphere quite different from the tourist intensity of the park itself.