Last night's clock change seemed to have the opposite effect. Rather than an early start to the day we all end up having a massive lie in and I clock 9hrs sleep on my Garmin. It wasn't unbroken however as our overnight stop, which is specifically designed to accept mohos, is opposite the town church. It probably wasn't super early but I was woken by the sound of ringing bells that seemed to go on and on for several minutes and when I awoke again it was 9am.
Al being the only one of us up and dressed decided to see if there were any bakeries and although he couldn't get any fresh bread he returned with cherry beer, chocolate milk and a couple of custard eclairs (clearly all essentials!)
We've got a 45 min drive to get to Brussels where we park up at the edge then have a 10 minute walk to the atonium. This is Belgium's equivalent of the Eiffel tower and was actually built for the same reason, the world expo in 1958. Most of the other expo buildings from the other countries are no longer present but we did get to read all about them as part of our visit but before that we visited Mini Europe as the queue was huge for the atonium.
Al, Robert and I have actually been here before in 2017, prior to the UK leaving the EU so we're interested in how they may have changed our presence. Luckily we'd not been evicted from the exhibition but we did have to pass border control 😬.
We love how many places in Europe are really into Halloween and mini europe included, there's plenty of extra characters added to the scenes and photo opportunities for the kids.
They both really enjoyed seeing places that we've visited on our travels and having done a large portion of Europe not only did they know a lot of the countries but had been to the monuments in the scenes.
After a couple of hours we headed back to the atonium which thankfully no longer had a huge queue. Out of all the 'balls' only 4 are open to visitors. The first is now a museum all about the 1958 world exposition and how the building came to be, including alternative designs. The next 2 house a temporary exhibition which currently is an immersive sound and light show which both kids really enjoyed.
To get to the final ball you take an elevator straight up and that caused quite a backlog meaning we had to queue a long time to get there. In the top ball you get some nice views across Brussels but I'm not sure it was really worth the wait.
Our final stop of the day was to the design museum which is just a 5 minute walk away and included with the atonium ticket. Given the kids enthusiasm for art we hoped they would enjoy it. The main exhibition here is all about the use of plastic as a construction form and independently from us asking both kids went about and wanted to then show us their favourite pieces. The temporary exhibition was about design comics and how that related to inspire real life objects. It definitely sparked an interest with the kids and a good way to spend the last hour of the day.
Al can't resist being in the land of fries and not get some more so before we head back to the moho he visits a little stall he had eyed up earlier to get a snack.
On our walk back through the park to the moho miraculously Robert managed to find his giant leaf that he had hidden from earlier. Bare in mind that there were literally thousands of leaves everywhere and it was now pitch black this was rather impressive. This did lead to a giant leaf finding contest and we now have several back in the van.
It's another relatively short drive, 45 mins, to our sleeping spot where we have a quick pasta meal hoping to get everyone an early night before another long theme park day. Unfortunately whether it's over tiredness or excitement it takes ages for the kids to actually fall asleep so hopefully they still feel well rested to tackle Walibi tomorrow.