June 9 - Head to the north part of the city to visit the Atomium, a structure completed in 1958 for the World’s Fair. It is meant to be a body-centered unit cubic cell of iron (including 9 iron atoms), magnified 165 billion times. It is a bit pricy to ascend the observation deck, so we just look at it from below while Odette has a Belgian waffle.
Next door are several child-friendly venues. Of them, we visit only Mini-Europe. This is a park of miniature structures (at about 1:25 scale) inaugurated in 1989, each a famous site somewhere in Europe, inside and a few outside the current EU group. Over 350 buildings (or other sites) in 80 cities are represented.
This is the warmest day we’ve had yet on the trip. It must be 25 C or more. We head back downtown and stop at an African Restaurant I searched on Google, called Restaurant KM5.0. It could hardly be more African, in that people inside are milling around, talking loudly, and no one is clearly in charge of dealing with customers. Some of the choices suggest the owners are from Cameroon.
The food takes over an hour to arrive but there is a lot of it, and Odette eats all her fish.
Next is a surprisingly varied tour of statues peeing. The first is Manneken Pis, the boy peeing fountain where you have to push through the throng of tourists to get a photo. The statue itself is quite small.
After this is Zinneke Pis, a dog peeing on a fire hydrant.
And finally, Jeanneke Pis, a little girl peeing. This one is tucked up a small alley, hardly visible until you are right beside it.
Back to Grand Place, much easier to see the architecture all around the square, now that it is empty.
Nearby this is Galerie de la Reine, a long indoor mall, a bit like a Middle East bazaar.
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