After a short night, we took the buses the next morning (7-MAY) for a visit of Mini-Europe and the world famous Atomium.  The weather was not soo nice (very very cloudy) but at least, it was not raining (and not so hot as usually in Biel in June :-)

Then we entered Mini-Europe.  This park is normally visited by 10 year old school kids, so it must be good enough for swatch collectors :-)

After passing about 20 European countries in about one hour (including some empty spots for the ten new members of the European Community; they were just working at some installations for Poland :-) we went straight ahead for the Atomium.  This is a fascinating construction (can you call it a building) that was made in 1958 for the world expo in Brussels.  After almost 50 years, you can see some signs of age (rust etc.).  Nevertheless, it is definitely one of the most astonishing sights in the world...

The height of the Atomium is about 90 meters, so we took a (very fast) elevator:

This is Mini-Europe as it can be seen from the Atomium:

Unfortunately, the weather was not very clear (and the windows not very good cleaned), so no other pictures from above of Brussels (the skyline isn't very fascinating anyway).

I took the stairs down, there was a very nice exhibition showing some artworks and original construction plans of the Atomium, including one artwork that is strongly swatch related:

The exhibition was really the best part about the Atomium:  A video about the construction in 1958 was also shown.  Judging from the pictures, I don't think that it would be possible to construct such a building nowadays (they were working in the winter to get ready on time)...

Outside of the Atomium, collectors were already having fun...

Click here to read part 4 (lunch time and an exciting trip to Fort Genval) of my report about the Swatch The Club Event in Brussels.

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