22 December

We slept in a little bit this morning and then headed out to catch a train to the Atomium. During a World’s Fair many years back, someone built an enormous model of an iron model for Brussels. This atom is something like several billion times larger than actual size and is truly a sight to behold (being the science geeks we are). I think you would like this one, Kevin. Unfortunately for us though, the top third of the atom was shrouded in mist and thus we could not get the nice pictures we wanted. People are allowed to climb the atom but we also refrained some doing this because of the poor weather. After spending only 15 minutes at the Atomium, we boarded a train back to Brussels and headed to the so-called Euro City. The Euro City is a complex of buildings in which a lot of the important business of the European Union is conducted. As a sight it was nothing impressive; just a lot of glass-paned buildings. From the Euro City we took a local train to the city of Bruges which was a quaint and pretty Belgian town. Its multitude of bridges and canals reminded us of Amsterdam. Probably the best part of Bruges was a tall belfry that looked remarkably like the tower of Orthanc from Lord of the Rings. The belfry had over 360 steps which was quite a hike but definitely worth it. We were lucky to get a wonderful panoramic view of the city near sunset. After Orthanc (which we probably took more pictures of than anything else in Belgium) we walked around the city some more and then caught an early evening train back to Brussels. Upon returning to Brussels we made our way back to the Grand Place to see some of the light show again and to the Christmas Market to enjoy a warm chocolate-covered Belgian waffle. It was delicious. From the Market it was back to the hotel for some much-needed rest, packing, and postcard writing.