Wednesday, August 21, 2013

Brussels, Belgium

 
The ship left Southampton, England, Sunday evening sailing through the English Chanel, passing the White Cliffs of Dover around midnight (I was very disappointed that I missed that sight), and arriving at the port of Zeebrugge, Belgium around 8:00 a.m.
Belgium is a country about the size of Rhode Island centrally located in Europe.  The people speak three different languages:  mostly French, some Flemish, and a little German.  They have a royal family -- Philippe is currently the king.  They also have a very complex political system, so much so that their last election in 2010 took 500+ days to determine the winning party, setting a record in the Guiness  Book of  World Records.

We had to drive by motorcoach for about 2 hours to get to Brussels, which is the capital of Belgium, and the capital of the European Union (EU), and the headquarters for the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO).  Brussels has a population of about 1.1 million people.

Brussels City Hall

The royal family has two residences in Brussels and this one is called “The Library"
(This picture shows but one quarter of the building.)

The Worlds’ Fair was held in Brussels in 1958.  The ATOMIUM is a model of a molecule of Iron billions of times larger than normal which was created for that fair.  Each of the spokes has walkways inside and each of the spheres houses a retail establishment with a restaurant at the top. 
 Flower arrangements on the sidewalks.
 A round glass building – I thought it to be amazing.

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