A tour of Europe (Part 1)

[Note: This is Part 1 of Mini-Europe. It includes the northern European countries and a bit of UK and France.]

Another two months after the previous post about Brussels, here's the "sequel". We went to Mini-Europe the next day. We needed to take the metro out of the town centre to get there.

the Atomium (we didn't pay to go in)
You'll see it again in the background of our Mini-Europe pics.

Bruparck! We only went to Mini-Europe though.

in the main entrance (plenty of orange turtles!)

Our destination: Mini-Europe

flags at the beginning of the visit (there's a path for us to follow)

This is gonna be a huge tour of Europe...are you ready? Let's go! (but it is so long that I will be breaking it up into several parts...)

the Berlaymont in Brussels, main seat of the European Commission

Oh, and that was the turtle who took a photo with us when we came in (then when we went out, they asked us to buy the photos and/or key-chains containing the photos)

the house close to Paris where Jean Monnet and some close colleagues penned the Robert Schuman declaration, heralding the birth of the European Union (I'm copying from the guidebook :P )

the Atomium again

my father the English guard

Big Ben and Westminster Palace
(the England part of the tour actually came later, we took a detour 'cos there was a gaggle of kids right in front of us -_- )

Eiffel Tower

Ireland: In front we have Glendalough and Ballydavid. The tent-like thing is the Gallarus Oratory, a Christian place of prayer in Ballydavid. The small building with the little round tower is St. Kevin's Church (a simple "stave church", whatever that means). Beside it is the 33m high Bell Tower.
At the back is St. Patrick's Rock in Cashel, the oldest remnant of Irish Christianity.

St Patrick's Rock from another angle

oil rig

my father the Viking warrior (he serba-boleh one ;) )

Denmark: the Nyhavn (New Harbour) in Copenhagen

Denmark: on the right is the Exchange in Copenhagen. The spire of the brass turret is made up of four interlaced dragon tails and three royal crowns. (the yellow square tower is NOT part of this building!)

Denmark: Trelleborg, one of the best-known reconstructed Viking camps, a circular fortress with 31 wooden "long-houses". (oh well, I didn't know it :P )

Sweden: Stockholm's city hall

Finland: Olavinlinna Castle

Estonia: the seaport and cannon tower (called the fat Margareta), part of an ancient medieval enclosing wall in Tallinn

Latvia: The monument of freedom in Riga

Lithuania: The University of Vilnius

Part 2 will be here soon :) (The length of the posts are mainly due to the photos anyway...there isn't that much to read!)

Edit: So as not to flood my blog, I will program the following posts on Mini-Europe to be published every 12 hours. It will also leave me free to post any "current news" without wondering whether I should post these first...