(NB. This post was originally written in Feb 2016. It has been updated)

It is totally no surprise that Miniatur Wunderland (MW) is THE number 1 tourist attraction in Hamburg. It works at every level, for everyone in the family; mums, dads & kids.

That’s because, not only is it endlessly fascinating, but it’s huge (the largest model railway system in the world), it’s a reflection in which we can see ourselves, and it’s fun!

Spoiler alert: I’m sorry but this review is going to be ‘gushing’ because everything about Miniatur Wunderland is amazing and I think it is easily one of the best, if not THE best, attraction of its kind in the world.

I am a huge fan, and I’m not alone – not only does it have a max 5-star rating from Tripadvisor based on over 21,400 reviews, but last year (2018) over 14 million people visited it!

And you can tell there are plenty of people worldwide who would like to visit. Since it was published on Youtube back in Nov 2011, Miniatur Wunderland’s official English language video,  has been watched for an average 2:56 mins by over 26 million people! 

Never mind their official video (actually there are squillions of videos. Just do a Youtube search) here’s mine. Google Photos took it upon itself to auto-create a video from my clips & photos. Not sure I would have picked the same music though!

So, why is Miniatur Wunderland so cool?

Well, there are a number of reasons, starting with its sense of fun.

I grew up near a model village in Devon. It’s still there, decades later and still drawing in the crowds because it’s full of playful fun, with plenty of recognisable references, some of them tongue-in-cheek, to the local area and contemporary cultural events and people. Miniatur Wunderland does the same…

Exhibit A: The armed police laying in wait in the underground bank vault for the hapless burglars who’ve tunnelled their way to the vault and are about to break through.

Exhibit B: The dangling monk, trying to climb down to his bees and needing to be rescued.

It’s also the extreme detail: MW is a series of complete miniature worlds. Not just railways, though railways dominate, but cars, boats, planes, landscapes, buildings, street furniture, and people – a cast of thousands – all living in, for example, the fictitious city of Knuffingen, which not only has some detail…

“It’s a city of 10,000 inhabitants, idyllically situated between the Harz and the Alps, and one of the largest cities in Miniatur Wunderland. Knuffingen is known for its innovations and has a worldwide reputation for its automobile industry. The groundbreaking Carsystem of Miniatur Wunderland was initially installed in Knuffingen, and still is the largest in Wunderland with more than 90 cars. The police in Knuffingen are also well equipped. A radar trap regularly catches truck drivers who are putting the pedal to the metal. The fire department Knuffingen is working at full capacity, and the central computer system is afflicted by the work of an arsonist who sets fires on different houses in the city. We haven’t been able to catch the arsonist yet, much to the annoyance of the fire department and the joy of our guests. So, the siren will be heard as a characteristic sound in Knuffingen for a long time to come.”

…it also has its own website!

It’s the clever technology: planes landing, taking off & taxiing (to a schedule posted on an airport style departure board – everybody waits to see Concorde take off!) while airside support vehicles run around them at Knuffingen Airport, ships manoeuvering through rocky coastlines in Scandinavia, cable-cars in the mountains, cranes moving stuff around. And all this in a 15-minute “day” which transits into a pink sunset, night, and then morning again.

 

It’s the interaction: There are over 150 push buttons around the displays that activate animated scenes and effects, EG. two guys having a race on pallet trucks in one of the cargo areas at the airport, or the tractor pulling competition in Bavaria or the DJ Bobo performance at a huge music festival in Switzerland.

It’s the way MW shows us what we want to see and let’s us soak it all up: I love the way we are allowed to see ‘behind the scenes’. The control room, with all the techies watching the computers running the systems, and the CCTV screens displaying not only parts of the ‘worlds’ but also the perspective from some of the trains (they’re fitted with cameras), is also part of the ‘display’. And (this one is one of my pet issues) MW’s policy on photography. When I asked about it on my way in the reply was: “Of course! Photograph or film everything you want. We encourage you to!”

What’s there exactly?

Miniatur Wunderland, which in 2020 will be celebrating its 19th anniversary, is spread over three floors in a huge former warehouse in the docks area of central Hamburg. It comprises ten zones, with more in the pipeline.

Zone/Size	Opened
Harz/Central Germany 120 m²	August 2001
Knuffingen 120 m²	August 2001
Austria 60 m²	August 2001
Hamburg 200 m²	November 2002
America 100 m²	December 2003
Scandinavia 300 m²	July 2005
Switzerland 250 m²	November 2007
Knuffingen Airport 150 m²	May 2011
Italy 190 m²	September 2016
Venice (addition to Italy) 10 m²	February 2018
Fun Fair 9 m²	November 2019 (Under construction)
Monaco 36 m²	November 2020 (Under construction)
Provence 27 m²	November 2020 (Under construction)

Table source: Wikipedia

In March 2019, Miniatur Wunderland acquired the lease on another warehouse on the opposite side of the canal with 3,000m² of space. The original plan was to build England for launch in 2022, followed by France, Benelux and then Africa, Asia, India by 2028. Now though the plan has been revised.

England has been dumped.

“You could say we have already accomplished our Brexit”, says MW’s Fredrik Braun with a smirk, adding: “By now 25% of our visitors come from abroad. To many of them, Europe looks alike – old houses, small towns, meadows, fields, forests and the occasional mountain. Therefore we decided to create completely new worlds. We are starting by building South America.”

For the first phase of construction 200 m² have been planned, covering the Amazon and the Andes, Rio and the Antarctic.

Is there a downside to Miniatur Wunderland?

No.

Well, maybe just one. It is hugely popular, so there will be times (eg. school hols, weekends) when you have to endure long entry queues and packed viewing galleries.

If you go early morning, mid-week during the winter as I did, you can chill out & enjoy yourself for hours. Most importantly, if you pre-order your ticket with a booked entry time, you can walk past the entrance queues and straight in. I did, but when I went there weren’t any queues to walk past!