Visiting the Atomium

At some random moment at the end of the school year Beertje asked out of the blue if we could visit the Atomium once this summer. Since he knew we'd do a staycation, we should have plenty of time at hands and he'd really like to visit the Atomium once.

Sure, that should be easy to plan. 


And then summer passes and it's literally the day before school starts again and we've yet not been at the Atomium yet.  Isn't that typical? But I hadn't forgotten and the last 10 days I had carefully checked when we'd be able to fit it in.  If we drove there, I wanted to combine with a visit to Mini-Europe so we'd need at least half a day. On some days combi tickets were already sold out. And on weekdays, I didn't want to be stuck in Brussels traffic jams.  So on the last Sunday morning of August we hit the car in the direction of Brussels. 

Roads were closed nearby for some event so we randomly parked a bit further in the park of Laken and after a surprisingly lovely walk we arrived at the famous monument dating back from the World Exposition in 1958 in Brussels. 

We quickly got in line with our tickets to get in the slow line to the elevator that takes us in top speed to the top ball.  After taking the view in from all sides, we were in line again for the elevator to go down.  

From there, it were escalators that took us to some of the public balls. In 2 we saw expositions on the construction of this odd monument and about the World Exposition in '58.  That was quite interesting. 

In the last balls we could visit, there were just neon light installations, which I found quite disappointing. 

Some of the views from above

Leuven is straight ahead

Laken and Brussels

The eeuwfeest paleizen at the Heyzel, still dating from an earlier international exposition early in the 20th century

Koning Boudewijn stadium

The parc of Mini-Europe next doors

It was not the first time I had been in the Atomium but the latter time was probably more than 20 years ago.  I believe the best about the monument is the outside which remains so remarkable. The view is good, but I'm not too impressed with the rest of the visit inside. I'd not book it again, now that I've done it.