For work, I had to go to South Carolina in the USA for two weeks in mid-August. Since I had two days over the weekend to see something, I spent the first day exploring the historic center of Charleston and the following day at Boone Hall Plantation. Charleston is the largest city in South Carolina, and despite the Southern battles and an earthquake in the 19th century, much of the historic center is still preserved.
This year’s summer vacation took me to the island of the United Kingdom. After initial problems due to the weather, which caused a significant delay in the departure, I finally arrived in London at night. The next day, the lively city was explored. Of course, the usual sights such as the Tower, Westminster Abbey, and Big Ben were a must. Additionally, a visit to the Natural History Museum was on the agenda.
After several years, I visited the zoo in Duisburg again and I must say that a lot has changed. Like in many other zoos, the enclosures here have been enlarged and made more natural, so that not only did you have a good view of the animals, but they also had more space including retreat options.
A few years ago, I had already visited the zoo at Emmen once. Back then, it was still located in the city center and quite cramped, which made me feel genuinely sorry for many of the animal species due to their often very small enclosures. At that time, however, the new zoo was already under construction, and now that it had relocated, I wanted to see what had been created here.
Shortly after Easter I made use of a stay at Nordhorn to take a look after many years to the meanwhile extremely redesigned zoo. The zoo is not only on German side very popular but due to the neighborhood to the German-Dutch borderline also at the bordering country.
Between Christmas and New Year, I made a short trip to the Dutch Zwolle were a really great ice sculpture festival took place. After some waiting time (overall nearly 90 minutes) you entered the ice cold hall.
Our round-trip led us to the uprising Cuba. Each day a certain part of our route was passed via bike (2-5 hours a day where we made from 30km up to 60km). The rest was spent inside the escort vehicle. Without that it would not have been possible to make on some days trips of up to 180km.
The summer holidays were spent at the architectural very interesting city of Barcelona. The very lively metropol of Spain is characterized by the works of Antoni Gaudi. Everywhere across the city you can find his buildings. No matter if Sagrada Familia, La Pedrera or Park Güell.
Because of never having been to the zoo at Emmen and due to the fact that I was able to get cheaper tickets I thought of visiting it spontaeously. You can find some impressions of one of the oldest zoos of the Netherlands online.
Here some impressions of my holidays at Norway and Sweden. You can find pictures from Oslo where the trip began. Afterwards I continued towards the region of Dalsland to maka a one week canoe trip starting at Bengstfors. Finally the holidays ended at Gothenburg where I stayed some days before I unfortunately had to return to Germany.