Vacation, the long version - Part three of five - Walking around the neighbourhood

On the third and fourth vacation day I did not bring my camera. Not because the places I visited were uninteresting, but because it simply wasn't practical.

The third day I went to the city of Rotterdam with my friend Monique and we visited the Wereldmuseum (world museum) and walked around the area there. We also did a lot of chatting and sitting down to have coffee and show each other our sketchbooks/journals. It was a fun day!

The fourth day I went to the city of Zutphen to do some shopping and visit the market. Unfortunately it was a very rainy day so the market was pretty much non existent, all the salespeople simply stayed home. Luckily the city still has plenty of nice shops to offer so I didn't go home empty handed. 

So neither of those days were really photography trips. But the fifth day I took my camera for a walk again. Because of the four day trips already behind me I was pretty tired and decided to sleep late that day, do a lot of reading on sisters couch, and just take a stroll around the neighbourhood.

My sister lives on the edge of Zelhem and all you have to do a pass a little tunnel and you are in farm land. So the pictures in this post are of the walk I took that day:

As you can see in these pictures there's a lot of water on the fields and sometimes on the roads as well. It was quite a rainy week actually, but I managed mostly to stay dry, so I was pretty lucky. Still, it made for some muddy roads sometimes and dirty shoes!

Hope you liked our little walk around the farm land and look forward to our next trip. Wishing you all a wonderful and artsy day.

Vacation, the long version - Part two of five - Slangenburg Castle

On my second vacation day I stayed a bit closer to home and biked between Zelhem (where I was staying) and Doetinchem (the nearest city). Of course I took the scenic route. Between the two places is only a few kilometers, but I managed to bike about 25 that day. I mostly did that so I could visit and walk Slangenburg Estate. Slangenburg is a castle close to Doetinchem and the area around it is as stunning as the place itself. I went on two shorter walks and took a  break in between in the former carriage house of the castle, which is now a lovely lunch room and restaurant.

Here's an impression of that beautiful day:

What I like most about the surroundings of the castle are the many many very straight lanes. They make for fascinating images and I took dozens of pictures of them, I could have filled a whole separate post with them!

The castle itself is a place where you can stay overnight for a personal retreat. The rooms are beautifully done in style. I have stayed there a couple of times in the past and have fond memories of that.

Well, I hope you enjoyed walking around there with me and will see you on our next trip! Wishing you all a wonderful and artsy day. 

Vacation, the long version - Part one of five - A trip to the zoo

On my very first vacation day I went to city of Arnhem to visit the beautiful Burgers' Zoo there. I'm always a bit ambiguous about zoos in general, but they do give a person who does not have the ability to travel the word a way to take pictures of animals outside her own country.

So here is a photographic impression of a day walking Burgers' Zoo.

Yea, this is not a zoo animal, just a bird that really wanted me to share my lunch. ;-)

I think it's obvious from these pictures that the time that a modern zoo kept animals in tiny cages is pretty much done with, at least in my country. More and more they are at least attempting to give the animals a bit of their natural habitat. Of course it's not a substitute for living freely, but it's definitely an improvement from the past.

It was really cool by the way to be able to photograph a tiger up close! There was glass between us, so no worries, but it still was exciting!

I hope you enjoyed walking the zoo with me and look forward to share my next day trip with you. Until then have a wonderful and artsy time!