WORDLESS WEDNESDAY

A DAY AT THE ZOO WITH MY GRANDSON

Last week I went to the zoo in Antwerp with my 3 year old grandson. The zoo opened it’s doors in 1843, it is in the city center of Antwerp next to the train station so we went by train. It is a small zoo as it is in the city center but a little gem with lots of flowers and century old tree’s, if I would live in Antwerp I think I would go every day. One of my favorite animals here are the gorilla’s , I LOVE gorilla’s !!! As it was during the week and on a schoolday there were not so many visitors so we could go and do what we wanted in piece.

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BABOON

SMALL ANT EATER

MONKEYS, I COULD WATCH THEM ALL DAY

OKAPI, APPARENTLY THERE ARE MORE OKAPI’S LIVING IN ZOO’S THEN IN THE WILD

 

ONE OF THE VERY OLD TREE’S, BEFORE IT WAS A ZOO THIS WAS A PARK WITH VERY OLD TREE’S

THERE ARE ANIMAL STATUES ALL OVER THE GARDEN OF ANIMALS WHO  ONCE LIVED HERE BUT DIED

MOST PEOPLE WHO VISIT THE ZOO GO SIT ON THIS GORILLA TO HAVE THEIR PICTURE TAKEN, UNFORTUNATELY MY GRANDSON WAS AFRAID OF THIS BIG MONKEY….

HERE’S A REAL GORILLA, ISN’T HE  BEAUTIFUL !!???

CHIMPS

BLACKFEET PENGUINS

PELIKANS

HERE IS MY GRANDSON LOOKING FOR NEMO, THIS WAS THE BEST PART FOR HIM, HE WOULDN’T LEAVE THIS AQUARIUM, HE WAS SO PLEASED TO SEE NEMO AND HIS FRIENDS IN REAL LIFE, HE DIDN’ T UNDERSTAND WHY NEMO’S SHARK FRIEND WAS NOT IN THERE WITH THE OTHERS…..

THIS WAS TAKEN INSIDE THE TRAINSTATION OF ANTWERP

As you can imagine we both had a lovely day.

Thanks for visiting and have a great weekend all !

 

WORDLESS WEDNESDAY

MAS MUSEUM IN ANTWERP

Last weekend we were in Antwerp where we met some Dutch friends, we had planned to walk arround and visit all the nice places in Antwerp but alas, the weather was cool and it rained constantly so it was a perfect day to visit a museum. As many of the museums in Antwerp are being restored or worked on we decided to go to the MAS museum (means museum on the border of a stream) as you all know Antwerp is a world harbor at the border of the river Scheldt. Part of this museum is filled with permanent exhibitions and part of it is filled with temporary exhibitions, it is huge so we couldn’t see all the exhibitions. The permanent exhibitions are about ships and what they brought back to Antwerp from far away countries.

A VERY OLD MODEL OF A SHIP

THIS LADY WAS ONCE THE FRONT OF A LARGE SAILING  SHIP

AND SO WAS THIS GENT

ALL SORTS OF KNOTS THEY USED FOR BOATS AND SHIPS, YOU COULD LEARN HOW TO MAKE THEM THERE AT THE MUSEUM AND KIDS LOVED IT

THIS BOAT LAY AT THE BACK OF THE MUSEUM AS THE MUSEUM IS ALMOST SURROUNDED BY A SMALL CITY PORT

HERE YOU CAN SEE ANOTHER PART OF THAT SMALL HAVEN, MAINLY USED BY PLEASURE BOATS, AND YOU CAN SEE IT WAS A GREY AND WET DAY

ONE OF THE EXHIBITIONS WAS ABOUT WAR SHIPS IN VIETNAM

THIS TAG BELONGS TO THE SHIP ABOVE

A VERY OLD DUTCH PAINTING

THIS PAINTING IS MADE OF OLD DUTCH TILES FROM DELFT (HOLLAND), THE DELFT TILES ARE ALWAYS IN WHITE AND BLUE AS IS ALL PORCELAIN MADE IN DELFT, SUCH AS COFFEE CUPS AND POTS, TEA CUPS AND POTS, TIMBLES, STATUES……..

THESE HELMETS WERE WORN BY SAILORMEN WHEN THEY HAD TO DEFEND THEIR SHIP

AND THESE WERE THEIR WEAPONS, ALL MADE OF IRON AND VERY VERY HEAVY

JAPANESE DOLL’S

ISN’T SHE PRETTY ????

JAPANESE HORSE

 

OLD AFRICAN ART

A SMALL AFRICAN STATUE MADE OF IVORY, YOU CAN SEE A MIRROR IN THE BACK SO YOU CAN SEE IT IS DECORATED  ON ALL SIDES

DOESN’T HE LOOK SCARY !!!

A VERY OLD BIKE, CAN YOU IMAGINE PEOPLE RODE ON IT !!!!, BEHIND IS A PAINTING OF ANTWERP AND THE BIG HARBOR

AN OLD AMERICAN CAR, IT WAS HUGE

I hope I can show you pictures of the city of Antwerp some day, it is an interesting and very old metropolitan city, with lots of very old buildings and numerous restaurants and bars where you can eat and drink well, in Summer many restaurants serve mussels with French fries (who are actually Belgian fries but that is another story…) a delicatessen !!

 

I hope you are all well and enjoying yourselves !

 

 

GAUDI

As I knew the work of Anthoni Gaudi from books and television I wanted to see it in real life one day so when we went for a long weekend to Barcelona I thought, yesssss ! Now I can go see the works of Gaudi but the waiting queues for all the interesting places in Barcelona were looooong ! Apparently the weekend of May 1st is one of the busiest in the year as Spanish people have that day off and many had a long weekend as May 1st was on a Thursday. There are works of Gaudi all over Barcelona ofcourse and we did see those but I wanted to go to Park Guell and we did, I thought it was a park with works of him and it was but it was HUGE !! and again there were long queues to get in. There was one part of the park that was for free and we visited that one as there were no queues to get in but if you had to go to the toilet…there were al least 100 ladies waiting to use the toilets !!!!

Enough said, I’ll show you the pictures now.

You all know or heard from the famous Sagrada Familia Basilica, someone other than Gaudi started building the Basilica in 1882 but Gaudi took over a year later and they have been working on it ever since…we are now 2014 and they expect it to be finished in 2020. I wonder ! One of the reasons why this is taking so long is that it must be contructed with donations only as officially this is the Basilica of the poor.

THE SAGRADA FAMILIA CAN BE SEEN FROM A LONG DISTANCE, THIS IS A VIEW OF BARCELONA, THE BASILICA IS ON THE RIGHT  IN THE TOP CORNER

The following pictures are from the Park Guell.

 

THIS IS PART OF THE HOUSE GAUDI LIVED IN FOR OVER 20 YEARS, IT IS IN THE FIRST PART OF THE PARK GUELL AND WE COULD GO INSIDE TO VISIT.

THIS WAS TAKEN INSIDE HIS HOUSE

THE MAN HIMSELF

A SELF DESIGNED CHAIR

THIS IS A PEEPHOLE FOR A FRONT DOOR, HE MADE IT BY PUTTING HIS FINGERS IN WAX

AND THIS IS THE MATCHING DOORHANDLE

PART OF HIS BATHROOM

PART OF HIS GARDEN

 

THERE WERE SALESMEN ALL OVER THE PARK

THIS WAS SOMEWHERE ELSE IN BARCELONA

CASA MILA, ALSO CALLED LA PEDRERA BY THE PEOPLE OF BARCELONA AS THIS BUILDING REMINDED THEM OF A STONE QUARRY, IS ANOTHER ONE OF GAUDI’S WORK, THERE WAS A CONSTRUCTION THAT COVERED THE OUTSIDE OF THE BUILDING AS THEY WERE WORKING ON IT.

I must say I was pleasantly surprised to see how well kept all the old buildings were and how clean everything was in Barcelona especially with so many tourists !

Have a great week all !