The Atomium

What an adventure we had to get tonight's blip!

The Atomium is one of Brussels' best known landmarks, and at night it's illuminated by 2,970 LED lights. I recently saw a photograph of it lit up, and decided it was something I must blip so I asked Alan if he'd take me tonight. We took his tripod so that we could get some nice clear shots, and were hopeful of capturing the full moon overhead.

Little did we know that tonight Belgium were playing Macedonia at the Heysel Stadium (next to the Atomium) in the 2014 World Cup Qualifier! As you can imagine it was mayhem - roads were closed, there were Police everywhere and there was nowhere to park. So after driving around Alan pulled up, I jumped out of the car and he went round again while I took a couple of shots. Unfortunately I wasn't able to use the tripod, so they were handheld night shots but I'm actually quite pleased with the result, which looks good viewed large.

Tomorrow night, I'm going on another night time blipping mission and will try using the tripod - fortunately, I won't be going too far!

The Atomium was built for the World Trade fair in Brussels in 1958, and there are 5 spheres open to the public which host an exhibition and the top sphere is a panoramic restaurant with views over Brussels.

It stands 102 metres high, and a couple of years ago my daughter did a 'death slide' from the very top sphere - she had to climb through a hatch at the top and wearing harness was attached to a cable and then slid all the way to the ground!

In other news today I was at the gym at 8.30am, had my French lesson at 10.30am, and then met the girls for lunch for Tracy's final farewell lunch before her & Ian's move back to Canada tomorrow. So all in all, it's been a busy day!