It's possible that the Tiger & Turtle Magic Mountain could only ever have been made in Germany. The Germans are, on the whole, an active, outdoorsy bunch, and so will probably be quite happy with a "walkable roller-coaster."
That's right. The Tiger & Turtle is a roller-coaster with steps and slopes that need to be climbed under human power, a concept completely laughable in the U.S, a country where 70% of car journeys are less than two miles long. The roller-coaster is actually more of a sculpture than a theme-park ride (designed by German artists Heike Mutter and Ulrich Genth), but that doesn't makes its loops any less impressive.
The 21-meter (69-foot) structure sits atop a hill made of toxic zinc slag left over from local mining operations. This puts the visitor 45 meters (148 feet) above the surrounding countryside of Duisburg.
And that scary-looking loop-the-loop? Disappointingly, you can't use it. The steps are still there, but they arch up and over your head like a bridge that has been twisted and wrenched during a sci-fi alien invasion.
The Tiger & Turtle opened just four days ago, just in time for the chilling northern European winter winds.
Tiger & Turtle [Mutter and Genth via the Giz]
