We’ve explored many castles in the past on Google Sightseeing – whether large, illegal or remote – but there are many more diminutive castles out there worth exploring.

Nunney Castle in Somerset may be historic, but is barely larger than many houses in the village that surrounds it.

Broadway Tower in Worcestershire may be tall, but it’s only large enough for one room on each of its three floors.

Burg Rabenstein is one of Germany’s smallest castles, again barely larger than nearby houses.

While an Englishman’s home may be his castle – that’s literally true for the residents of this home in Georgia, which is slightly less venerable than the castles mentioned above.

Constructed from local granite and marble, at around 140 square metres the castle is actually a fairly modest size compared to most suburban residences constructed these days.

The Street View car passed by under gloomy skies, giving the castle a brooding air as would befit a rather more historic castle in the old world.

No self-respecting castle would be complete without a moat, and here it even opens up into a swimming pool behind the house, visible on Live Maps. There’s even something resembling a gate house (which I assume is actually a pool house), and the whole property is also bordered by a suitably impressive fence.

There are tiny castles all over the world – let us know of any in your area!

Thanks to Alex Makarishev and Dennis.

The Futuro House is a round, prefabricated house that was designed by Finnish architect Matti Suuronen in 1968. About 100 of the kits were erected around the world, and you’d know if you saw one – because they look exactly like perfect little flying saucers from some 50s B-movie.

Royse City Fututo, one of three surviving in Texas

Built from fibreglass-reinforced polyester-plastic, Futuros are around 4 metres high by 8 metres across, and have super-cool airplane-style hatch entrances.

Waterside Futuro in Berlin, Germany

Suuronen’s aim was actually to design a ski-cabin¹, one that would be “quick to heat and easy to construct in rough terrain”, and in this respect he succeeded – a Futuro House can be placed on virtually any terrain, requiring only four concrete supports, and thanks to the integrated polyurethane insulation and electric heating system, even in the most extreme conditions it only takes around thirty minutes to achieve a comfortable temperature inside.

Futuro as part of the Canberra Space Dome & Observatory, Australia

Despite the obvious awesomeness of these UFO-shaped homes, by the mid 70s they had been withdrawn from sale – although this was mainly due to the 1973 oil crisis, which had sent the price of plastic skyrocketing.

Front and back of the Pensacola Beach Futuro House, Florida²

Around sixty of the original Futuros have been accounted for over the years, but there are still many that remain undiscovered. The most complete archive is at futuro-house.net (there’s another with an embedded map at archinform.net), but it seems to have been left to stagnate for a number of years – perhaps Google Earth will provide the means for all of the missing Futuros to be rediscovered?

Double Futuro House, Franklin, Ohio

It should also be pointed out that the moulds for making Futuros apparently still exist… about time for a revival don’t you think?

Futuro in Covington, Kentucky

Here’s an article that includes a floor plan, some images of a Futuro being helicoptered into position, as well as some great shots of people inside.

The Singapore Flyer is a 150 metre-tall observation wheel located on Marina Bay, overlooking Singapore’s city centre – and for the moment, it holds the title of the world’s largest observation wheel.

The next tallest observation wheel is the Star of Nanchang (sadly not-yet-built in Google Earth¹, but here’s a ground-level photo), which was the world’s tallest from when it was built in 2006, right up until the opening of the Singapore Flyer in February 2008. This is odd, because at 160 metres the Star of Nanchang should never have lost the title!²

It transpires that the Singapore Flyer has been built on top of a three-story building, taking it to a total height of 165 metres and into the record books. What a con!

Observation wheels seem to be de rigueur these days³ – just last weekend Melbourne got in on the act with the 120 m Southern Star, which we can see under construction on Australian Street View.

Elsewhere, Germany is busy building the Great Berlin Wheel (location), which at a planned 175 m would take the title from the Singapore Flyer.

Unless of course China gets there first, as the Beijing Great Wheel (location) is due to be completed first, and will rise to a staggering 208 metres.

All of which is great news for the Great Wheel Corporation, who will then be the owners of all three of the tallest observation wheels in the world.

There’s lots more at Wikipedia about the Singapore Flyer, the Star of Nanchang, the Southern Star, the Great Berlin Wheel, and the Beijing Great Wheel.

Thanks to John Andresen and Glenn Baker.

The Waldspirale, in Darmstadt, Germany, which at first glance from above may appear to be a park, is actually an apartment building that reaches twelve floors at its highest point.

The fascinating building was designed by Friedensreich Hundertwasser, an Austrian architect and painter, between 1998 and 2000. Unfortunately, he died shortly before it was completed. Going with Hundertwasser’s personal style, the building contains Russian onion domes and few straight lines¹. The roof of the building is a green roof, planted with beech, maple, and lime trees.

The building has 105 apartments, as well as a cafe and a bar at the top of the spiral. Uniquely, the building has over 1000 windows of which no two are the same.

Flickr has many ground level photos of the Waldspirale.

Over the years we’ve featured hundreds of sights claiming to be the “World’s Largest Something“, and when we featured the World’s Largest Dump Truck last week, I wondered if we were finally running out. However our loyal readers came through with some classic “World’s Largest” material – replete with the usual controversy of course!

Yes, we’re truly scraping the bottom of the “World’s Largest” barrel – because it’s time for the World’s Largest Barrel!

Bad Dürkheim in Germany is home to the World’s largest wine festival – the sausagey-sounding “Wurstmarkt” – and it’s also the location of this absolutely giant barrel, which has a claimed capacity of 1,700,000 litres. Unfortunately they decided to fill it with a restaurant instead of booze.

But does this barrel-restaurant really count, or is it just a building that looks like a barrel?

If we exclude it, then the title may fall to the 220,000 litre Heidelberg Tun: the World’s largest barrel which is actually used as a barrel. Also in Germany, it’s sadly kept in the basement of Heidelberg Castle.

Wikipedia’s article on the World’s largest roadside attractions claims that the world’s largest barrel is neither of these, but is instead found at McWilliams Wines, in Hanwood, NSW, Australia. However I don’t believe the Big Hanwood Barrel was constructed using traditional barrel-making techniques, and anyway doesn’t look nearly big enough…

You’ll be glad to know that the “World’s largest roadside attractions” Wikipedia article has enough silly “World’s Largest” sights to keep us going for another few years at least!

Thanks to Izzy and Flümo.