Instead of our usual city stops, we fancied a change. About an hour south of Berlin is a huge structure built in 2000 that was supposed to house an airship. However, the company went bust in 2002 before the craft was built. At 360m long and 210m wide, the former hanger-that-never-was is the world’s largest un-columned hall and one of the largest buildings (by volume) in the world. In 2004 it was opened as a massive waterpark called Tropical Islands.
Due to various discounts we had, it actually worked out cheaper to stay overnight in the ‘resort’ than buy day tickets. So we parked up The Van in the car park, packed an overnight bag and walked… and it was a fair old trek in the heat.
For the cheap overnight stays (yep, that’s us) you are allocated a tent on a ‘beach’… which is actually just a sand covered area well away from water. Nevermind. And the tent just contained a couple of mattresses and bedding, which was fine. We then spent a few hours in the various pools and slides, including a large outdoor area which is accessed through revolving doors, while you are waist deep in water.
Indoor beach 
Not sleeping in The Van tonight 
Outdoor pools
What was initially quite nice and ‘tropical’ was the 26C air temperature, which is good when you are getting in and out of the water all the time (although it was actually even hotter outside). However, that same temperature is maintained overnight, and with there being loads of bodies of water everywhere, it’s also really humid! They keep selling alcohol until well into the night, so it’s pretty noisy. Combined with the heat and stickiness, I got a really crap night’s sleep. I was not a happy camper in the morning. Joolz was quite perky though.
Wish I’d slept in The Van last night 
To add to my general grumpiness, the majority of the pool areas are closed until 10am (possibly to give people time to sober up?). By this time, there’s quite a lot of day pass visitors there trying to escape the heatwave outside. It was crowded. I was really crabby, I went back to the van for a kip. Joolz stayed a bit longer and met me back there later. I think I was expecting something like the excellent theming and experience of the Florida water parks, but it was more like a large and crowded leisure centre…
Next, on to the capital! (in +30C heat)…