Legoland Berlin

Last weekend a few of us went and had a weekend in Berlin. We didn't have time to visit all the different hackspaces/makerspaces there (at last count, about ten in just the one city!) but did end up near Legoland.

Unlike the UK counterpart, it's not a massive theme park with rides and a sprawling outdoor park (it's built in the middle of a city for a start!) but is still quite impressive and worth a visit - particularly if one of your party happens to be a five-year-old boy who has just had a birthday.

In the (underground) entrance are some very impressive city-scapes, including a recreation of the Berlin City circa 1989, complete with working underground railway system.

The whole set-up is rather impressive.
And - unlike the cliched stereotype of a typical German - it's not devoid of humour; there's even a graffitti-covered wall which - at the press of a button - falls over to the cheers of the crowds.

Moments later a tiny David Hasselhoff belts out "Looking for Freedom" atop a Lego crane, complete with twinkling LEDs. The whole thing is fantastically tongue-in-cheek - not exactly the kind of thing we've been taught to expect from our German friends!

Of course the science and engineering section held our interest far longer than the Ninja Go and Batman franchised areas; servo-driven animations, flashing LEDs and loads of real-life moments in history captured in miniature made this a trip to remember!