The Sans Souci tour is set up just about perfectly - you start in some of the rooms that still bear a strong resemblance to Frederick's original vision, then make your way through those that his hapless descendents ruined with their more sober tastes, until finally you come to Voltaire's room as Frederick designed it, and it's bat-shit crazy. It's a powerful and beautiful thing, standing there in the room that he lovingly crafted to the last detail for his idol and friend, and thinking about the conversations that the monarch and the philosopher must have had there. But still, it's not entirely a SUBTLE room, matched for crazy only by the Chinese pavilion down the road aways. I can't seem to find a good wide shot of the Voltaire Room on the internets, but here's a good picture of ONE of the monkey statues:

And here is that exercise in Rococo restraint that is the Chinese tea house:

In other news, we are going to be at ECCC all weekend, at table E-16! Come and find us and ask us to draw things and relate ribald stories of historical import!! We get ever so lonely by ourselves!

- Count Dolby von Luckner