Until today when I came across this suggestion, I had no idea it was possible to water-ski without a boat. I now know that cable skiing (wikipedia) is a growing phenomenon around the world. This facility in Germany has a great image of somebody just after they completed a jump.

Previously on Google Sightseeing: Water-skiing on Loch Lomond

Thanks to Martin Hensen.

What is going on here in Grevenbroich, Germany? This shadow appears to be large human heads on a wheel.

It is actually a steel sculpture by George Ettl, entitled Ettlrad, a play on the German word, Schaufelrad, or paddlewheel. According to a translation of the city of Grevenbroich’s website, the wheel symbolizes the wheel of a coal excavator, with human heads rather than shovels.

The sculpture was part of the Landesgartenschau (Regional Garden Show) in 1995, whose principle is, “To heal the earth.” You can really see their smiles in this ground view photo.

Thanks to hati39 for the suggestion.

Note: This post is by one half of our brand new German translation team!

After two months without updates, the German translation of Google Sightseeing has just been relaunched!

de.googlesightseeing.com is being managed by myself, Jenni Fuchs, and my brother Joe. I work for the National Museum of Scotland and live in Edinburgh, while Joe is a Mathematics student living in good old Germany – hopefully the perfect blend to guarantee the best translations.

In addition to daily translations of all the best posts from the original Google Sightseeing, suggestions of new sights from our German readers are most welcome, and can be submitted on the German site via “Sight Vorschlagen” on the top right of the German site.

Furthermore, you should expect brand new Germany-specific articles as soon as Street View is available in Germany!

We’re really looking forward to sharing all the places we discover along the way, and of course criticisms and suggestions are always welcome.

Your German Google Sightseeing Team Jenni und Joe!

Visitors to Dubai who suffer in the summer temperatures over 45°C can cool off at Ski Dubai.

The resort offers the full winter experience, from building snowmen to taking ski lessons. There is even the ‘cozy mountain lodge’ where you can sit by the fireplace and enjoy some apres ski … though of course your glass of mulled wine would have to be non-alcoholic.

This however is not the largest indoor ski slope in the world  – that honour goes to SnowWorld in Landgraaf, the Netherlands, while AlpinCenter in Bottrop, Germany claims the longest indoor run.

Still, Ski Dubai doubtless has the largest energy bill as a result of maintaining a temperature around -1°C in the desert!

More information and lots of images at the official sites of: Ski Dubai, SnowWorld and AlpinCenter, and Wikipedia has a full list of indoor ski centres.

Thanks to Roy, Jack Langdon and David Thornton.

It appears that an English-speaking inhabitant of the German city of Duisburg has decided to profess his love for a person or persons unknown, who was presumably due to pass this way in some sort of flying mode of transport.

Time and time again on Google Sightseeing, we have seen that the fields of spelling, grammar and large-scale skyward-directed professions-of-love are failing to find much common ground – in this case however, the message additionally fails to have the desired impact thanks to our artist’s truly appalling typographical layout.

The arrangement of words is so bad in fact, that the message reads “I come ♥ back U”, and to make matters worse, is then followed by a botched attempt to write “I ♥ U”, which is being pointed out by an inexplicable arrow.

If I have understood his garbled message correctly, it seems our poor Romeo is actually trying to win his Juliet back.

Awww. Not with typography like that mate!

Previously on Google Sightseeing: I’m A FOOL 4U Gina, Will You Marry Me?, Thelma, Will You Marry Me?, the acceptable-but-they-cheated World’s Largest Marriage Proposal, and the equally disastrously arranged You! America Make Proud!

Thanks to Kay Ludwig.