Hamburg - Miniatur Wunderland

Miniatur Wunderland (it's German spelling) is where we chose to spend our Christmas day in Hamburg. When researching our trip, and knowing Germany shuts down for Christmas, it was a relief to see this is open. We booked tickets in advance.

Miniatur Wunderland is full of large scale models containing miniature trains, cars, people, animals, buildings, landscapes and more. All hand built. All with amazing detail. Moving objects, sound effects, lights, smoke and more. Every 15 minutes or so, it cycles between daytime and nighttime so every model is worth seeing twice at least.

It covers two floors across two seperate buildings, linked by a bridge over a canal.

Some vital statistics from Wikipedia:

• 1,120 digitally controlled trains with more than 10,000 wagons.
• 4,300 houses and bridges,
• More than 10,000 vehicles – of which around 350 drive independently on the installation
• 52 airplanes
• Around 290,000 figures.
• Almost 500,000 built-in LED lights.
• Of the 7,000 m2 of floorspace, the models occupies 1,545 m2

We spent about 5 hours in here and could easily have spent longer except it was getting way too crowded mid afternoon and our feet were getting tired.

Apart from the realistic aspects of the models, all amazing, those who design the models have a great sense of humour and there are funny little stories being told all over the place.

Here's just a small selection of my photos, of the incredible and the humorous...

Mission control where staff keep an eye on everything for problems. They have cameras and sensors everywhere!

A fire.

Peak hour traffic at night.

Crossing between the buildings.

Horse poo.

Errr.... yeah....

Tour de France including an accident.

General view, gives you an idea of the scale.

Santa and his sleigh have become separated, each on different roofs across the road from each other.

The bears are not happy about this shop.

A Coca-Cola truck like you would see on Christmas ads. I had to wait ages for this. I saw the truck drive past and had to wait for it to drive all around the model and back to me. When it came back, it was sitting at traffic lights, with its indicator blinking. I had to wait for the lights to go green for it to turn the corner. The realism is incredible and thoughtful.

The airport. Here, planes actually take off and land. There was a Millennium Falcon parked on the runway too.

Venice including the Rialto Bridge and something strange happening in the crowds at Piazza San Marco.

Monte Carlo with the Grand Prix in progress.

This is all just amazing. You could visit here a hundred times and still notice something new. It's very clever and hats off to everyone involved in the creation of this marvel. Thank you Miniatur Wunderland for being open on Christmas Day.