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hestia8The Atomium is a massive structure...thing out near the end of one the metro lines in Brussels. It was originally built for the World Fair in 1958 (also known as Expo 58, which is a far cooler name). It's 102 metres high, and the shape represents an iron crystal multiplied 165 billion times (!!).
It was originally only supposed to last for the duration of the Expo but it proved to be so popular that it stayed open to the public afterwards. It was closed for a big renovation in 2004, which included replacing the original aluminium spheres with stainless steel. It reopened in 2006 and now gets about half a million visitors a year, iirc (not nearly enough imo, more people should go).
There are nine spheres in the Atomium, of which five are open to the public (although one of those is the Children's Sphere which is only for school groups). We didn't go right up to the top sphere (despite the temptation of a panorama) because the queue was massive and we'd already been in a queue for a stupid amount of time (that's the problem with tall buildings just made for climbing).
View from outside, anyway:
Inside the Atomium:
plan drawing of the Atomium
A lot of the displays in the Atomium were of furniture design, which was pretty cool - this high chair was my favourite.
There was a viewing platform in one of the spheres so you can get a higher view without going up o the panorama.
In this picture you can see Mini Europe, which I sort of wanted to go to (still might at some point) even though I am not entirely sure what it is (Model Village Europe, I think)
It was originally only supposed to last for the duration of the Expo but it proved to be so popular that it stayed open to the public afterwards. It was closed for a big renovation in 2004, which included replacing the original aluminium spheres with stainless steel. It reopened in 2006 and now gets about half a million visitors a year, iirc (not nearly enough imo, more people should go).
There are nine spheres in the Atomium, of which five are open to the public (although one of those is the Children's Sphere which is only for school groups). We didn't go right up to the top sphere (despite the temptation of a panorama) because the queue was massive and we'd already been in a queue for a stupid amount of time (that's the problem with tall buildings just made for climbing).
View from outside, anyway:
Inside the Atomium:
plan drawing of the Atomium
A lot of the displays in the Atomium were of furniture design, which was pretty cool - this high chair was my favourite.
There was a viewing platform in one of the spheres so you can get a higher view without going up o the panorama.
In this picture you can see Mini Europe, which I sort of wanted to go to (still might at some point) even though I am not entirely sure what it is (Model Village Europe, I think)
