The playground is within walking distance of the Elbe bicycle path and the Johannstadt Ferry-Gardens. It covers approximately 14,000 square meters, and is intended, above all, for children through the age of 12. The problem of the Elbe’s recurrent flooding was solved with a special response: one year after the playground’s destruction in 2002, a new construction (appropriately dubbed The Shipwreck) was opened. Every component of this new playground could be quickly dismantled and re-assembled once the floodwaters had receded. Following ten years of intensive play, and the flooding of 2013, the individual pieces of the Shipwreck had to be replaced. Donations from the Peter Maffay Foundation and the Heart for Children organization made it possible for the playground to reopen in 2014, this time christened as the Sunken Paddle-Steamboat.
The playground’s equipment inspires all kinds of fantasy games and role playing, hide-and-seek and balancing acts. For every adventurer, there’s a mud table and sand-crane above deck, and a winding labyrinth below. This third incarnation of the playground again boasts a most useful feature: whenever the banks of the Elbe begin to rise, its parts can be quickly disassembled!
