Extremely Challenging & depending on what you like in a puzzle it can be frustrating! Yet Beautiful & huge!
This is our 2nd attempt at completing this puzzle. We started it the 1st time back around the year 1999-2000? 1st you are going to need an area large enough to build this puzzle. At that time I went to the hardware store and bought a sheet of 3/4" Plywood & had them cut it to the dimensions on the box plus a couple inches. measuring 152.9 x 101.4 cm, So right at 40" tall (so the 4ft tall plywood works) followed by 60" wide (5ft) This is a huge puzzle & it is so fun, that is..... Until you have nothing but the sky left! My wife & I both love puzzles & were Active Duty Army at the time so we did the puzzle when we had the time. Eventually all that remained was sky and even though we kept at it, eventually a transfer of duty stations caused the failure to complete. I took the puzzle apart in sections placed on glass sheets I had and put them all in a box. Then bagged up the sky and also placed that in the box. We are retired now and although Ive looked inside that box both my wife and I have this feeling that parts are missing, damaged, or? It's been in there for over 15 years and I see pieces loosely laying around that have been slammed around in moves! So we bought another one! After waiting some time for one to come up for sale we decided we would finally finish the puzzle that beat us. I highly recommend this puzzle for the challenge. In a lot of ways I wish the photo was taken with an active sky. Maybe a spectacular clouded day, partially cloudy with the sun. Or just something other than blue. Regardless of all the puzzles we have searched for and completed, this one remains the favorite. Very few every get framed and must meet 3 criteria. #1 size! If its not large, then its just another puzzle. #2 The photograph/Art! The picture or art needs to resonate with you. #3 The Challenge! What good is a beautiful Photgraph/Art that's easy with large pieces & can be finished with ease. It removes a part of what makes it special. We base all our puzzles off this puzzle. If it doesn't meet the "5K Neuschwanstein Ravensburger" minimum then we don't bother. Oh, is it entertaining? That answer is both yes & no! The exsilleration of completing puzzles of this magnitude or larger is fantastic!