European Diary: On my third attempt I finally got a look inside the Atomium, one of Belgium's biggest tourist attractions and Brussels's symbolic equivalent of the Eiffel tower in Paris.
Like its better-known French counterpart, the Atomium was built as a temporary attraction for an international expo but was so popular it was maintained.
The 102-metre structure opened again last month after a two-year facelift that cost €27 million and put a shine on its previously dilapidated exterior. The original aluminium shell has been replaced with gleaming stainless steel and German designer Ingo Maurer has added lights inside and outside to show off its enormous structure.
Since the reopening the crowds have rushed to visit the Atomium, which was designed in the shape of a crystalline iron molecule, magnified 150 billion times.
"Do you think it is still open," asked a confused visitor in the queue that snaked around outside the Atomium last week an hour from closing time. Ten minutes later we got our answer as the doors were locked from inside the building, provoking a sigh of disappointment from the crowd waiting in sub-zero conditions. The following day I returned an hour and half before closing time - admittedly on a busy Saturday afternoon - only to have the same depressing experience of being turned away a few metres from the entrance.
Yet standing under the gigantic structure, which consists of nine huge spheres, each with a diameter of 18 metres, is an extraordinary experience. Even 50 years after it was first designed the Atomium looks as if it comes straight out of the future, like some sort of gigantic space station welded to the ground in suburban Brussels.
"The Atomium symbolises this age of ours in which men of science have enriched our knowledge of the structure of matter," wrote André Waterkeyn, the Belgian designer of the Atomium, when the building opened for the 1958 Expo. "My most sincere wish, in designing and building the Atomium, is that it will encourage young people to seek careers in technology or in scientific research."
Sadly, Waterkeyn died in October last year, just a few months before the Atomium reopened amid a blaze of positive coverage in the Belgian press.
An editorial in the daily newspaper La Libre Belgique reflected the national mood.
"Its nine marvellous balls remain an astonishing reflection of modernity, icons of the 1950s of course but also . . . an architectural symbol for Brussels." All the media hype added to my sense of anticipation when on my third attempt to beat the queues I finally made it inside the Atomium.
The ground floor is dominated by memorabilia from the 1950s, including a completely refurbished BMW Isetta - a hit with the kids that throng the building.
Getting to the top sphere involves a short ride on the Atomium elevator, which at a speed of 5 metres per second was the fastest lift of its day in Europe in the 1950s. At the top of the structure there is a viewing deck with a fantastic panoramic view of Brussels and a restaurant, which when it opens next month will offer visitors a selection of Belgian specialities, although not its frites due to fire regulations.
Unfortunately, the rest of the Atomium doesn't quite live up to the hype. Three of the nine spheres are out of bounds to the public as they are technical areas. One of the five remaining spheres is reserved as a VIP area, and on the day I visited the sphere dedicated to children was closed - leaving just three spheres with exhibition space.
The two temporary exhibitions, a photographic exhibition by Belgian photographer and an artistic installation by Jean-Luc Moerman, are limited from the lack of space available to them and suffer as a result. Similarly, the permanent exhibition paying tribute to the scientific spirit of the 1950s and the construction of the Atomium suffer from a lack of detail and interactive exhibits.
The many school groups circulating the building while I was walking around quickly lost interest in the photographs and video footage that characterise the exhibits and made their own fun running up and down the escalators that connect each sphere.
The Atomium, with its super-sized molecular structure, seems the perfect place to awaken an interest in science among children but its interior at present fails to deliver the right mix of exhibits to keep kids interested (and out of the elevator shafts).
Still, from the outside the now gleaming steel structure certainly catches the eye and looks set to remain a symbol of Brussels and one of its most popular tourist destinations.