Playmobil 5053, G-Scale wedding chapel

When I started building my large scale layout, I immediately imagined a hill with a tunnel and a church on top of it. I've been looking for a fitting product that would resemble some sort of a temple for some time now. Unfortunately none of the offerings from Piko, Pola G or even Vollmer suited my needs. All the models I found were either too large, or too exotic or simply too expensive. And then, while browsing Google images I stumbled upon this photo:

The link led to an Ebay auction where the chapel shown in the image was offered for the price of around 100 Euro. The description was clear about what the item actually was. And it was simply a toy model, part of the Playmobil series. 100 Euro for a toy? That seemed like a lot...

So I kept looking but found out the product was no longer in production. And it was difficult to find a store that would still have it in stock. Luckily there was a seller offering it on the Amazon market. And it was priced at a mere 20 Euro. I did not need any more convincing and bought it immediately...

Unfortunately the product is "mainly" a toy. And as such it has to offer some "play features". To achieve that Playmobil makes all its buildings open on one of the sides. This is not something a railroad modeller needs and we'd prefer that no walls are missing. The easiest way to achieve that? Buy two sets instead of one and mix them together.

So in the end my total cost was around 40 Euro. That's still less than half of the Ebay price...

Unboxing confirms it is a toy indeed. Plenty of Lego-quality plastic pieces and a lot of snap-type connectors that will join them together.

My little helper was very eager to build the chapel for me. The entire task took the 8 year old less than 30 minutes.

The finished model looked exactly like in the Ebay photo...

...but obviously had the back still open.

It needed extra parts. But for a start (and for some fun) we've simply built another identical chapel using the second set.

And then - by mixing them together - we've easily closed the back gap.

This left us with a lot of unused elements. Maybe those could be utilized for something? And so we've started experimenting with creating an extended version of the model.

A church with a super tall tower?

Or perhaps a church with two towers?

And actually the latter idea was the one we liked most. It was a good compromise between parts reuse, nice look and realism. This is what it looked like from each side.


It's done then. And how does it perform on the top of my hill? Well, it did not end up there in the end. I found this building to be too large, too. So instead I've just placed it on a piece of a flat terrain.

I've also added some LED-based interior lighting to make the model visible at night. I had no idea how to approach illumination of a church so the outcome is not really that realistic. But at least it's not completely dark anymore.

How does it compare to other products? Well, I have to admit it definitely does look toyish. It's in no way a replacement for a model like the one shown below.

Pola G 330990

The shapes of the elements are very basic. The building lacks details and its back is very, very shallow. The parts are not glued together so it's not sealed either, but of course that could be changed.

Most importantly - the model's weather resistance is unknown and definitely not guaranteed. Only time can tell how it will age. But on the other hand, I already have another Playmobil product on my outdoor layout and after a year in the changing conditions it does not look bad at all.

Was it worth the 40 Euro I've spent? For now I'd say it was. The building does not look terribly bad and may look even better when it weathers with time. I might be also adding details on my own to make it more attractive. It's just a pity it does not fit on the top of my mountain :(