Budapest: Miniversum

With Elise feeling not the best and staying home, it was Samuels turn to choose an adventure for Eric and himself. His choice was a good one. Just 2 minutes walk from our apartment, Miniversum is a delight for adults and children and especially for train geeks.

It's billed as a world in miniature, with the model trains the star of the show. Two massive train sets, with miles of track and hundreds of bits of rolling stock provide hours of fascination.

The first model is based on Hungary. In addition to Hungarian rolling stock it features typical Hungarian buildings and scenes. Along the walls were plaques (in English too) explaining various modelled scenes giving them a historical context which told a story of Hungary under Communism and then moving towards the free market economy of today.

The second model was (seemingly) more loosely based on Austria and Switzerland. It was very much mountains, bridges and tunnels. There was so much going on it was hard to follow just one train as it disappeared in one tunnel then out of another. The programming behind the trains was immense as could be seen by the massive control room at the end of the display.

Miniversum also had a big playroom where kids could build their own model railway tracks and Samuel had a go at this for a while as Eric continued to follow (and video) trains around the massive display. Perhaps there's not just one train fanatic in the family.

All in all a great afternoon.

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