Explore a little world from the comfort of your home

January 13, 2016 10:37 AM

Hamburg's Miniatur Wonderland has been featured on Metafilter before (1, 2) but now you can explore 9 of its sections as if you were there with Google Maps.
posted by jontyjago (14 comments total)

Hamburg's Miniatur Wonderland . . .

Misread as Minotaur Wonderland. Am disappoint.
posted by The Bellman at 11:08 AM on January 13, 2016 [9 favorites]

The "previouslies" here blew me away at the time, about as much as I would have thought possible. The immersiveness of these images proves that I was mistaken. I really want to get to Minatur Wonderland at some point.

Disappointment here seems...churlish.
posted by Ipsifendus at 11:21 AM on January 13, 2016

First one I checked out was called 'In the Tunnel', which after a few model-train images led to a behind-the-scenes area of wires and drainpipes. That was one of the saddest things that's ever happened to me.
posted by colie at 11:27 AM on January 13, 2016

Disappointment here seems...churlish.

I'm not saying it's not cool; I'm just sorry it doesn't have more Minotaurs.
posted by The Bellman at 11:32 AM on January 13, 2016 [2 favorites]

I believe I just completely changed my plans for this year's trip to Europe.
posted by humboldt32 at 11:35 AM on January 13, 2016

Miniatur Wunderland is absolutely worth a detour if you find yourself in Germany and like model trains. The scale of it is just incredible. I don't think the Street View experience really captures it, unfortunately; one of the coolest things about going there is that there just...keeps...being...more...of it. You think you've seen it all for sure and then you turn a corner and there's a whole other continent waiting to be explored.
posted by town of cats at 11:36 AM on January 13, 2016 [2 favorites]

Is this the place those bodybuilders go?
posted by Solomon at 12:21 PM on January 13, 2016 [2 favorites]

Cray-cray.

I was a bit surprised where it doesn't work like the common interface: I could see license plates! No panel zoom!

Greatest bit of Google Maps hack in a long time. What a neat little place! A nice bit of armchair tourism to be had in the Treks section -- never come across that before.
posted by Ogre Lawless at 12:29 PM on January 13, 2016

I like the ones where I look up and there's not a normal ceiling but zone of warped space or an ebon disk hovering above.
posted by otherchaz at 1:28 PM on January 13, 2016

I visited Wunderland a few years ago and can't say enough good things about the place. It's an amazing piece of work.

Just be careful when zooming in too close on some of the scenes. There are many many NSFW and/or adult goodies hidden in the scenery. (Example)
posted by JoeZydeco at 1:38 PM on January 13, 2016

The scale of it is just incredible.

Or "HO" if you want to get technical about it.
posted by uosuaq at 6:11 PM on January 13, 2016 [2 favorites]

“Google Used Tiny Cameras to Street View the World’s Largest Model Railway,” Jamie Condliffe, Gizmodo, 13 January 2016
posted by ob1quixote at 7:41 PM on January 13, 2016

Huh, it's even translated to Norwegian, and then probably other languages as well. No half measures!
posted by Harald74 at 12:24 AM on January 14, 2016

I was literally composing this post in another window!

A link to the Intro
Story on Mashable
Introductory video (massive bonus: Pippi Longstocking at 2:36).
posted by Miko at 6:04 AM on January 14, 2016