The Atomium
& walking around Brussels

We were in Brussels because yesterday we went to see Massive Attack at Forest national.

nHow Bloom

We stayed a the nHow Bloom near the botanical garden. This is the 3rd time I have stayed at this hotel this year. We have also stayed at the nHow hotel in Berlin. The nHow hotels are themed, the Berlin one has a music theme and you can have musical instrument delivered to your room, thi Brussels one is Art themed. There are 3 elevators the first was Rene Magritte themed, the second Piet Mondrian and the third Vincent van Gogh.

The last time that we stayed here, for the David Byrne concert, when I ran the tap in the morning brown water came out of it. I reported this to the hotel staff, they were very good about it and this time they upgraded our room to the Gallery Suite.

We had breakfast, with my friend Schepp who had come to the Massive Attack gig with us, we looked at the map and worked out that walking to the Atomium would take about the same time as public transport.

Walk through Brussels

On our way to the Atomium we walked past:

• Saint Mary's Royal Church
• Gare de Bruxelles-Nord
• Stoomlocomotief at Port Brussels
• Gare Maritime - Food Market where we stopped for coffee
• The tower of The Charter of Human Rights
• A park with tight ropes part of the School of Circus skills, I attempted the tight rope.
• Titeuf - Mur BD - Street Art

The Atomium

I first visited the Atomium, which was built for the 1958 World Fair, on a school trip in 1982. We had been touring around Europe for 2 weeks, I was 12 at the time and we didn't have a lot of money, because Brussels was the last stop of the tour I had run out of money so I could not go inside the Atomuim. I had also run out of photos in my camera so didn't get to take any pictures either, this is not a problem anyone experiences now.

The first part of the tour takes you to the top and the view out over the city is pretty awesome. You then get the elevator back down to the ground floor. The elevator has a glass roof and there is a fantastic light show.

Once back on the ground, we thought that was it, you go up an escalator to one of the other globes. Inside this globe there is a history of the Atomium and how it was built. The next level up there is a room with another light show and music. It would be an incredible place to have a party.

Once we had finished we had to get to the airport to return home. A great couple of days in Brussels.