Imagine yourself in the welcoming embrace of the huge bronze sculpture in front of the new hotel. “Krønasår – The Museum-Hotel” appears to wan to hug all arriving guests. The female figure that rises out of the water and carries a horse on her shoulders is the Nordic goddess Rán. Like everything else in the new hotel, the fountain has a Scandinavian flavour. The artist Wim Steins, whose bronze statues adorn numerous towns and museums in the Netherlands, took his inspiration from mythology.

The goddess Rán ruled over all life in the sea and the kingdom of the dead at the bottom of the sea. The title of the work of art – “Lev Vattnet” – is Scandinavian and means “Long live the water!” It is a reference to myth, but also to the new “Rulantica” Water World.

The goddess measures three metres from the tips of her fingers on one hand to the other. The artist needed a special licence to transport it from the Netherlands. It finally arrived in Rust in horizontal position, and the colossus weighing 1,200 kilograms was then lifted into place by crane. The sculptor has a close connection to the Mack family.

“I like to walk through the park and I enjoy seeing the visitors having fun. The ambience always inspires me to do something different”,

says the artist of his ten or so works that stand in Europa-Park.