Wunderland Kalkar, Amusement park in Kalkar, Germany
Wunderland Kalkar is a leisure park in Kalkar, Germany, built on the grounds of a nuclear power plant that never became operational. The site uses existing industrial buildings to house various rides such as roller coasters, a Ferris wheel, a log flume, and a pirate ship spread across the expansive area.
The SNR-300 fast breeder reactor was built from 1972 but never went into operation and was abandoned in 1991. In 1995 Dutch entrepreneur Hennie van der Most bought the site for between three and five million DM and began converting it into a leisure centre that opened that same year. On 1 August 2022 the Dutch company DeFabrique took over the Wunderland.
The cooling tower's exterior wall was converted into a climbing wall, and since 2009 the tower has held the Vertical Swing, a chain carousel weighing 25 tonnes whose 33-metre height rises above the tower's rim. A children's park with ten attractions sits alongside. The name Kernie's Familienpark recalls the park's mascot figure.
The site lies on the grounds of the never-operated SNR-300 fast breeder reactor in Kalkar. Six hotels, among them Hotel Charlotte, Hotel Rosalie, Hotel Barbara and Hotel Rosamunde, form part of the resort and meet the DEHOGA 2-star standard. A helicopter landing pad occupies the northern part of the grounds; the hotels stand in the south.
Around 600,000 people visit each year to experience rides installed inside structures originally designed for nuclear energy production. The conversion represents one of the most unusual reuses of industrial infrastructure in Europe.
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