When I grew up in Germany during the 1960s and early 70s there was hardly any programming on TV. Computers? Internet? Yeah, right!
But there were LEGOs. Practically every kid I knew had a box full. I had a big box. And every day after coming home from school and finishing my homework I just built stuff. At that time there wasn’t quite such a huge selection of different LEGO elements as there is today. But we still built airplanes, ships, castles, spaceships, rockets, trains, you name it.
The time came when other things became more important in life than building LEGOs. I guess my mom gave the LEGO box away when I moved out. But little did I know back then that several decades in the future I would take my very own kids to Legoland in Ulm, Germany.
Here some of the impressive mini-towns and cities built entirely from LEGOs.
The first three shots are in the Berlin set.
![Berlin Berlin Reichstag](http://www.mrgullible.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/08/ll_berlin.jpg)
![Berlin2 Berlin Cathedral](http://www.mrgullible.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/08/ll_berlin2.jpg)
![Berlin3 I like this train bridge](http://www.mrgullible.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/08/ll_berlin3.jpg)
Many of the settings include rivers and lakes featuring real water.
![Water Netherlands scene, love the boat](http://www.mrgullible.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/08/ll_water1.jpg)
![Venice1 Venice with lots of canals](http://www.mrgullible.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/08/ll_venice1.jpg)
![Venice2 The famous Rialto bridge in Venice](http://www.mrgullible.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/08/ll_venice2.jpg)
And upon closer looking you find out that all the plants are alive! Trees, shrubs, grass covers. Once you build the structures they stay there. They are glued together. But there are actual gardeners pruning and tending to all the green stuff. That makes everything look so real.
![Trees1](http://www.mrgullible.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/08/ll_trees.jpg)
![Trees2 More trees in teh Netherlands set](http://www.mrgullible.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/08/ll_trees2.jpg)
![Trees3 Check out the grass, lovely](http://www.mrgullible.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/08/ll_trees3.jpg)
![Grapes real grapes, probably not, but real plants nonetheless](http://www.mrgullible.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/08/ll_grapes.jpg)
![PeeingGuy You gotta go when you gotta go. The little things you see these Lego people do.](http://www.mrgullible.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/08/ll_guy.jpg)
Airports, harbors, trains, hundreds of cars and trucks, I spent hours finding new stuff to look at.
![Airport Frankfurt airport with a cut-open Airbus A380](http://www.mrgullible.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/08/ll_airport1.jpg)
![Harbor2 Hamburg harbor. Check out the soar panels on the roof to the left.](http://www.mrgullible.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/08/ll_harbor.jpg)
![Harbor1 The solar cells make power for that ferris wheel.](http://www.mrgullible.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/08/ll_harbor2.jpg)
![Riverboat What's this riverboat doing here?](http://www.mrgullible.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/08/ll_riverboat.jpg)
![Skyline Frankfurt with it's skyline in the background](http://www.mrgullible.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/08/ll_skyline.jpg)
![Stadium This stadium is in a smaller scale](http://www.mrgullible.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/08/ll_stadium.jpg)
![Summitstation Summit station up in the Swiss mountains](http://www.mrgullible.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/08/ll_summitstation.jpg)
![UFO ...and right behind the station in the woods, a fracking UFO with green aliens.](http://www.mrgullible.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/08/ll_ufo.jpg)
Fractals in action? From the distance this looks like it’s made up of pretty big Lego technics elements. But if you get closer you notice that the big blocks are themselves built from real, smaller blocks.
![Legodino1 Lego technics dino, big Lego blocks, right?](http://www.mrgullible.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/08/ll_dino1.jpg)
![Legodino2 ....see the details? All the big parts....](http://www.mrgullible.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/08/ll_dino2.jpg)
![Legodino3 ...are themselves built from real Lego blocks.](http://www.mrgullible.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/08/ll_dino3.jpg)
I hope you enjoyed this little trip to Ulm, Germany.