Trevi Fountain, Hamburg, Germany

AUGUST 2023 – Scaled model of the Trevi Fountain in Rome, exhibited in the Miniatur Wunderland in Hamburg, Germany. Photo © Mark Zanzig/zanzig.com

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The story behind the image

One of the must-see’s in Hamburg, Germany, is certainly the Miniatur Wunderland, the world’s largest model railway. To be precise, it’s a giant model railway that by now also features a fully operational (model) airport, multiple (model) concert stages, and various themed exhibitions that each cover a respective topic or region.

To make it short – it’s awesome.

What makes it so great is the love of detail that goes into each model and scene. They try to get as close as possible to the original. This goal is supported by countless little stories that have been carefully woven into the scenes waiting to be discovered by the visitors. What’s more, they offer a certain degree of interactivy with the visitors. Buttons activate people and objects in the scenes.

While there’s a certain overweight for dramatic scenes – fire departments and rescue teams in the model world seem to always work overtime – but this does not hurt the overall impression of the miniature world. It’s just amazing.

Sometimes, just sometimes, you may spot differences to the real world, though. Take the Trevi Fountain in Rome, for example. My image above shows the scaled model in the Miniatur Wunderland. And here’s my real world shot from summer 2005.

I spotted several differences:

• The color of the water in the main basin is turquoise green in the original, but looks black in the model.
• The statues left and right of Oceanus look different in the model, and the space above them is left empty.
• In the model, there are no inscriptions in the half circle behind Neptune.
• The half dome above Oceanus is pretty plain in the model.
• Oceanus seems to be larger in the model (compared to the real world.)
• There are no people at all right next to the main basin.
• There are no huge streets on the left and right of the building. The fountain is really embedded into the maze of small streets in Rome.

Don’t get me wrong – I do not want to blame the makers of the scaled model. They certainly have to take difficult decisions concerning correctness and effort. Rather I want to draw your attention to the fact that a location that you believe to be a perfectly scaled model has indeed a number of tiny deviations that one will only spot when comparing it to the original in detail. (I was surprised by that thought.)

My conclusion? The Miniatur Wunderland is a stunning place that shows an overwhelming number of details and stories, and it is pure fun to discover these.

When in Hamburg, go visit the Wunderland!

Update notice: 2 hours after this post went live, I double-checked the findings with Google Maps and realized a mistake (concerning the number of windows) and removed the respective statement.

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The high resolution image

Capture Date & Time	11-AUG-2023, 18:41
Location	Hamburg, Germany
Camera	Samsung Galaxy S5 Neo (SM-G903F)
ISO	125
Exposure	1/8 sec at f/1.9 (HDR Program)
Digital Image Source Format	JPEG, 24 bits/pixel, sRGB
Edited Image Format	JPEG, 24 bits/pixel, sRGB
Edited Image Dimensions	2907 x 1635 Pixels
Copyright	Model © by Miniatur Wunderland, Hamburg Photo © by Mark Zanzig/zanzig.com