Brussels, Belgium

Caught the bus again out to Mini-Europe and the Atomium.

Mini-Europe is a miniature village depicting major landmarks for each EU country, representing 80 cities and 350 buildings and including moving trains, boats and aeroplanes. We had fun recognising from afar, buildings we had previously visited in our trips, such as Melk Abbey, The Palace of the Doge and St Mark’s Campanile in Venice, the Trevi Fountain in Rome, Royal Crescent and Circus in Bath and of course the Eiffel Tower and the Arc de Triomphe in Paris.

All the models are amazing well constructed and detailed. Many have small figures to show their relative size. Moving features, besides the transport models, included a Matador and bull, dolphins diving and sharks and leaping scuba-divers. Lots of fun and plenty of room to take photos from almost every angle.

On walking across to the Atomium, we stumbled upon a waffle seller and as Elise stated categorically “we can’t visit Belgium without having a proper waffle”, so we indulged. Lovely and sticky and runny (someone got chocolate on their top), we now felt fortified to tackle our next challenge. The Atomium is an amazing structure with three tiered floors in every particle (ball) and stairs and escalators along the force attraction lines (spokes). However, we were not particularly interested in the displays contained therein, which mainly consisted of modern art and how the structure was built. Not keen to pursue the higher levels, we left soon after for the peacefulness of the surrounding parklands.

After a visit to the nearby Planetarium for a display of the night sky and some fun competing with each other in answering astronomy quizzes, we headed back home after a very busy day.

Tomorrow we head off for the ‘old country’, but that’s another story.