Tuesday, July 16, 2013

Mini-Europe, Brussels

Brussels is the capital of the European Union. The EU has a headquarters in town but we were not interested in visiting it. Instead, we went to a (sort of) monument to the Union called Mini-Europe.

Mini-Europe entrance

The park has 1:25 scale models of famous places from the EU countries. The detail is rather incredible and it enables visitors to relive memories of visiting certain places, plan to visit others, and take a trip through most of Europe in one afternoon. Several of the models have an interactive bit, normally a button (at child height) to push. Lots of the buttons play national anthems; some make boats go around; one makes the bull fighters' ring erupt with cheers; another makes Mt. Vesuvius erupt! The kids loved visiting.

I went a little crazy taking photos at Mini-Europe (nearly 100), so I will just present some highlights of the park in this post. If you want to see the whole collection, visit my photo gallery here.

We visited some places we've already seen.
 
The ferry and J!

Sacre-Coeur, Paris, France

Sienna Town Square (okay, I visited that years ago before the family)

Astronomical Clock, Prague, Czech Republic

Szechenyi Baths in Budapest, Hungary (okay, actually it was just Uncle Nate who went here)

Brussels' Grand Place

We also saw some spots we still haven't gone to but hope to visit soon.

Houses of Parliament, London, England

Leaning Tower of Pisa, Italy

Detail from the tower!

Acropolis, Greece

Brandenburg Gate, Berlin, Germany

Surprisingly, the one real thing in the park is a piece of the Berlin Wall which was on display right behind the model of the Brandenburg Gate.

Real Berlin Wall

In addition to the models, the park has a couple of "photo ops" where visitors can put themselves in the shoes of icons from other countries.

L, Viking Warrior

J, British Palace Guard

Literally in the shoes of the Dutch

Auntie R

One exciting thing we saw was the soon-to-be-installed Croatian model, the St. Markus Church from Zagreb. Actually, the sign on the model said it would be installed July 1, so it is probably already on the display.

St. Mark's Church, Zagreb, Croatia

St. Mark's Church, Zagreb, Croatia

Remember you can go here to see the rest of the models.

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