Today we’re posting a roundup of the most interesting ways Europe has employed to get canal barges up-and-over stuff. The simplest method is of course a bridge, of which you can see several excellent examples in our previous post, A Canal Across Germany. However sometimes barges need to traverse obstacles that a bridge cannot cross, and Europeland has employed several ingenious solutions to particular geographic problems.

Between Saint-Louis and Arzviller in France, a system was required that enabled the canal to cross the Vosges Mountains. The solution is the Saint-Louis-Arzviller inclined plane, a single structure that replaced 17 locks upon its completion in 1969.

Basically, vessels float into a gigantic bathtub which is then hauled up a 108.7 metre-long ramp at 41°. This vertical change of 44.6 m used to take 8 to 13 hours to traverse, but can now be achieved in just 4 minutes.

Such canal inclined planes are actually not uncommon, but the Saint-Louis-Arzviller example is probably the steepest. In Belgium, engineers have a more traditionally modest angle, but over a much greater distance - the Ronquières inclined plane climbs 68 m vertically, but is nearly 1.5 kilometres long! This time there are two giant bathtubs (actually known as caissons), and the journey takes a much more leisurely 45 minutes to complete.

Seemingly on a roll, Belgian engineers are also responsible for the Strépy-Thieu boat lift - an absolutely monumental machine that dispenses entirely with inclines, and just lifts the barges straight up and down in two counterbalanced caissons¹. The difference between water levels is 73.2 metres, meaning this is officially the world’s tallest boat lift. At least until the new one at the Three Gorges dam is finished anyway…

We already posted the world’s steepest flight of locks, the Caen Hill Flight, so instead here’s the Foxton Locks - a set of ten canal locks consisting of two “staircases” each of five locks. Because the Foxton locks can hold many boats at once, they’ve become a very popular location for Gongoozling - the art of watching activity on UK canals. No, seriously - there’s a Wikipedia page on Gongoozlers and everything.

The best thing about the Foxton locks however, is that we can actually see a barge in one of the locks.

The UK also has two working boat lifts - the Anderton Boat Lift in Cheshire, England, and the awesome Falkirk Wheel in Scotland (which is unfortunately not available on Google Earth or Maps, but Microsoft’s Live Local has a good image of it²).

Although both rely on Archimedes’ Principle, the Falkirk wheel is unique as it is the only rotating boat lift in the world. Barges enter the wheel at the ends of two opposing 15 metre arms, which then rotate through 180° in five and a half minutes, using only the energy it takes to boil 8 kettles!

Read more at Wikipedia about the Saint-Louis-Arzviller inclined plane, the Ronquières inclined plane, the Strépy-Thieu boat lift, the Foxton Locks, the Anderton Boat Lift, and the Falkirk Wheel.

Or, if you’re really interested, “Canal lifts and inclines of the world” by Hans-Joachim Uhlemann seems to be definitive book on this subject.

Thanks to Jel and others.

Miniature parks and model villages are sort of like a pre-internet 3D Google Earth, allowing you to view a representation of a village or city sights from above.

So it’s no surprise that on visiting my local park, Bekonscot Model Village in Buckinghamshire, I was more excited than a 5-year-old let loose in a sweetshop. As I stomped around the 1930s English villages I wondered if I could see the park on Google Earth?

Sadly, the resolution of Bekonscot in Google Earth just isn’t high enough to make out any of the lilliputian houses, trains or airplanes. However, I discovered the village is a founding member of the International Association of Miniature Parks, and many of the other member parks have great resolution.

So, today we are going to explore International Miniature Parks, where we’ll see the best sights on the globe, just smaller and more fuzzy!

Mini Europe

Mini Europe is located in Belgium but features sights from the whole of the European Union including Big Ben, Mount Vesuvius, the Berlin Wall (complete with falling action) and the Eiffel tower (pictured in the thumbnail).

Miniatürk

Miniatürk is a miniature Turkey in the city of Istanbul. In the thumbnail is the miniature version of Atatürk Olympic Stadium.

Minimundus

Minimundus in Austria claims to offer the “most beautiful buildings of all 5 continents”. St Peter’s Square is easy to spot and the Opera house is also in there somewhere.

Still in Minimundus, The CN Tower’s height is being challenged by its neighbour the Eiffel tower, despite being almost twice the size in real life!

Rügen Park

At just 926 km² Rügen (Germany’s largest island) is only 2/3 the size of London, but if that’s just too much area for you to cover you can instead explore the tiny Rügen island at Rügen Park, located on the island of Rügen.

As an added bonus, to the west of the park you will find everywhere else, including the great pyramids, the Whitehouse and, pictured in the centre of the thumbnail, a pre-sinking Titanic.

Sardegna in Miniatura

Another miniature island within itself is Sardegna in Miniatura, which reproduces the Italian island of Sardinia.

Swiss Miniatur

Swiss Miniatur aims to “summarise Switzerland” in miniature form. Clearest in the Google Earth image is the Swiss Alps, located in the north-east of the park.

Italia in Miniatura

Back to Italy, Italia in Miniatura is located on a man-made island in the shape of Italy (of course), and features the country’s most famous landmarks. Look to the north of the mini-country and again you can just about make out the white peaks of the Alps.

Despite being a mini-Italy, they also have special section for a mini Eiffel tower. The resolution is too poor to make it out, but you’ve probably seen it enough already!

The rest…

For completeness, the other members of the International Association of Miniature Parks not featured today are the low-resolution Mini Israel, Miniatuur Walcheren, Pueblo Chico, Klein Erzgebirge, Miniature World, Catalunya in Miniatura, Pirenarium, and the previously featured excellent resolution Madurodam.

Further information on all the parks is available on the group website and Wikipedia has a large list of miniature parks which features many more.

Nestled amongst the buildings of a technical college in Antwerp is a F-84F Thunderstreak fighter-bomber. But how did it get there?

The Belgian airforce had around 197 of the American built F-84Fs, and the story goes that this one, serial number FU-36, crash-landed here around 40 years ago. Then, when somebody decided to build a school here - rather than moving the aircraft out of the way - the buildings were built around the plane!

Check out these fantastic HDR photographs of the aircraft.

However, personally I think the story is a little far-fetched. Even if you accepted that the builders wouldn’t just move it out of the way, what’s the chances that Belgium would just abandon one of their fighters?

I searched high and low for mention of FU-36 on the web, and found several conflicting reports of its location and status. Some sites do indeed describe it as “abandonded“, but others describe it as “preserved at a Tech School”.

One site even claims that “this is one of several aircraft that languished on Belgian military airfields” which would imply to me that, at some point, this plane was decommissioned and stored away on an airfield. Perhaps before being donated to the school?

Anyway, enough of this “investigative journalism” - the crash-landing story is way more fun!

Thanks: asfaltkonijn via Timdc

Following on from a post earlier this week, where a man was confusing aeroplane passengers flying over his home, today we’re in Belgium where a farming company have also been plagued by landing planes.

Situated only 2Km from the main runway of nearby Antwerp International Airport, the farm must have low-flying passenger planes pass over every few minutes.

However, rather than complaining about the noise, they claim to love aircraft noise! They even painted it on the roof, just in case you didn’t believe them.

Unless there’s a hint of sarcasm in the message…

Thanks: Romanov & felle

It’s still the 14th of February for another hour in some time zones, so we’d like to wish everyone a Happy Valentine’s Day with this heart-shaped swimming pool in Belgium!

Yes okay, that’s a stretch. In reality the only places to actually use UTC minus 12 hours are the uninhabited American territories of Baker Island and Howland Island in the Pacific Ocean (links are to Wikipedia).

As for the islands themselves, Baker has no coverage unfortuantely, but 68 kilometres to the north, Howland is captured with excellent quality imagery.

Not that there’s much to see of course. In fact other than using UTC-12, the only likely reason you might have heard of Howland Island is that this is where noted American aviator Amelia Earhart famously failed to reach during her attempt to make a circumnavigational flight in 1937.

Thanks to virtualglobetrotting.

On the day this image was captured there was something slightly unusual going on in this derelict factory in Brussels, Belgium. Inside the walls of the roofless building, there’s some tents and several lorries, a Helicopter, and… an African village?

How do I know it’s an African village? Well, it transpires that on this very day the abandoned factory was actually being used as the set for a TV advert - an advert which features a man being chased through an African village by a helicopter! Here’s a direct link to the 6.8MB Quicktime movie of the ad.

Spot the same car in both shots!

The tents and lorries to the west are presumably for the cast, crew and equipment and I suspect that the walled factory was chosen because it would hide Brussels from sight of the cameras perfectly. Suddenly it all makes sense!

Thanks to Romanov (via belgeoblog.be).

Could this possibly be the largest example of using a lake as art? Deliberately shaped like a handgun, the lake was excavated to use the land for building a nearby highway way back in the seventies.

Why on Earth they decided to shape the lake into a 2.5km long handgun is anybody’s guess. It looks to me like the sort of gun James Bond would use, but reader Jan suggested it was a ‘Colt‘ gun. Perhaps gun nuts out there could identify the exact model?

Today the lake has a bustling wildlife and is a popular destination for water sports and for the secret service to dispose of dead bodies (I made that last bit up).

Thanks: Jan Fabry

Belgian news last week picked up the story of a fountain in Maasmechelen which, after sitting happily in front of City Hall since 1979, will now be torn down and rebuilt. The reason for this change is the recent Google Earth discovery that when viewed from a satellite the fountain is in the shape of a Swastika.

Apparently the fountain’s designer always knew it was a Swastika, an ancient symbol of the Sun god which the Nazis tarnished. But the mayor cried “Tear it down!” and it will be rebuilt in the less offensive shape of a shamrock.

Thanks: jaques, fievel & Brecht