Wild and whacky?
On his travels, guest blogger David Ellis found this hot spot . . .
We had never really considered Berlin the place to go for a
tropical holiday.
So when a British-based colleague told us in January he was
ducking over there to swap the Poms’ winter snow and zero-temperatures for a
week of tropical 26deg. temperatures, maybe camp in a rainforest, play golf
in shorts and T-shirts, and get a suntan on a sandy beach, we considered he’d
gone, well, maybe a little bit troppo.
After all, if it was winter in Britain, it was winter in
Germany. And that meant anything but the balmy likes of the tropics, until he
sent us photos of all the things he told us he’d do – and done. Plus others
be-sporting himself amongst longhouses, temples, a falé and grass huts straight
out of Borneo, Thailand, Samoa, Bali and South America, and amid the rainforest
he’d boasted had waterfalls, palms, macaws, strutting pheasants and even
flamingos.
And he said he’d done it all 35km south of Berlin – with
thanks partly to an Australian who now lives in Bali. Now it was us wondering
which of us may have gone a little bit troppo…
But it turns out we’re both quite normal: our colleague had
taken his holiday at Tropical Islands, an extraordinary 66,000 square metre
man-made bolt-hole that’s been created within a gigantic dome built to house
massive freight-carrying German airships. But the company that built the dome
went belly-up in 2002 without a single airship being completed.
At 360m long, 210m wide and 107m high their hangar was – and
still is – the world’s biggest free-standing, pillar-less hall – high enough
for the Statue of Liberty to stand in its centre, long enough to house five
football fields side-by-side, and big enough for the Eiffel Tower to be laid
lengthways inside it.
And its 70,000 square metre roof is strong enough to carry
consistently falling snow throughout winter, and any amount of rain year-round
– and with UV-transparent film panels on the southern (equator) side, warming
sunshine washes over those on the inside and gives a natural tan.
After the failure of the airship venture, the group that
came up with the idea of an indoor tropically-themed waterpark recruited
Bali-based architect, Made Wijaya – who was born Michael White in Australia –
to design the core Bali Lagoon for them.
A specialist in exotic gardens with some 600 to his credit
world-wide, Made worked hand-in-glove with other landscape architects and
designers from South America, Sri Lanka, England and Germany who were charged
with designing the world’s largest indoor rainforest, between them all creating
an indoor theme-park as close to reality as possible to the real tropics.
Opened in 2004 and being right on Berlin’s doorstep,
Tropical Islands is today an escape-hole for not only Berliners but other
Germans and Europeans, by-passing the need to have to fly to the other side of
the world for a day, a week or longer in 'the tropics'.
Here in the 30,000 cubic metre Rainforest are 50,000 plants,
bushes and groundcovers comprising some 600 species from palms to ferns,
mangroves and diverse tropical fruits, a swamp that’s home to Amazon black
pacus, Asian archer fish, Japanese koi and Columbian shark catfish to name a
few. And flitting through it all parakeets, Chinese blue-breasted quail, silver
pheasants, zebra finches – even a pair of macaws.
And guides along the kilometre-long pathway will answer
questions about the rainforest’s plants and wildlife, and solve such
navel-gazing questions as why are bananas bent?
Tropical Islands’ 1,200 square metre Bali Lagoon is a
constant 32-degrees with water slides, whirlpools, a waterfall and grotto, while
a Tropical Sea zone sprawls over 3,000 square metres (three times an Olympic
swimming pool,) it’s waters a pleasant 28-degrees and has a sandy beach,
sun-lounges, children’s paddling pool, Germany’s highest waterslide, 18-hole
mini-golf, and under that UV roof you can get a natural suntan.
And a Tropical World has a shopping boulevard, sauna and
spa, games for the kids, and an accommodation block and lodges can sleep 520
any night – or you can camp-out in tents back in the Rainforest, or even on the
beach. Everything’s 26-degrees, 24-hrs a day, year-round.
There are also thirteen restaurants and bars offering
self-service or a la carte tropical-countries’ themed-dining, and spectacular
evening stage shows.
I was taken around the city bakeries by 'Brot Andi', Andreas Djordjevic, an institution in Vienna. Andreas is in charge of the bread cart in the two Michelin-starred Steirereck, the best restaurant in Vienna. The restaurant is divine with the most beautiful ceiling, amazing food styling - and flavour of course - and then there's the brot . . . .
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