A LOOK AT BRUSSELS BELGIUM
In Brussels, fall is starting to show. Today the weather was cool with grey clouds and a mist of rain. After weeks of hot weather and not much air-conditioning, we are enjoying the cooler walking weather.
We took the local metro tram to a unique building called the Atomium. The Atomium was built in 1958 for the Belgium World Fair. It is designed so that the whole forms the shape of a unit cell of an iron crystal magnified 165 billion times. It is 335ft tall and houses a museum. You enter in the bottom and take a fast elevator to the top. The view is amazing! Then we wander down into 3 the spheres to see the museum. The museum is small and shows of the building design and many news stories of it being built. So much more could have been done with the museum then what they currently due. Spending 10 minutes in each sphere is a stretch. There just isn’t much to see. However, it was fun to go into it and go to the top.
After that we went to the Basilica of the Sacred Heart. It is beautiful on the outside but the inside was a little of a letdown. It had the amazing stained glass as many cathedrals do, but the rest was not as impressive. It is a newer cathedral and was built with the art deco style. Construction began in 1905 and did not finish until 1969 – two World Wars slowed down construction. I think part of the reason the inside was not as amazing is because I have become spoiled with all the cathedrals we have seen. Nothing will ever match the Gaudi cathedral in Barcelona.
To get to our two destinations today, we took 3 wrong buses and 2 trams. We made it to our destination and home and accumulated 13,333 steps to show for it. Today was not a perfect day but it was great because we got to see firsthand how amazing our world is with its variety of cities. Beth
