One of our favorite things to do is going to the zoo. Not a particular one, we like to see different ones.

The Zoo at Duisburg has one of the nicest arrangements of displaying animals I've seen yet. They try to cohabit groups of animals that 'work well together'. True, lions might opt to be cohabited with the bisons, but that ain't gonna happen I guess...

Burgers' Zoo is our first and, until now, only Dutch Zoo. Located at Arnhem, it's got a rather decent layout. What's really spectacular about that Zoo is the fact, that they have both a tropical house and a desert house, the desert house copying the Sonora Desert...which makes it especially interesting for us.

The Cologne Zoo (Koelner Zoo) is one of our favorites. For one thing, they have a huge elephant house with a sizeable herd...yet enough space for them. For another, it's right on our front door, less than 25 minutes door to door if everything works out...and we hold a season ticket.... :)

...and another trip to the Cologne Zoo (Koelner Zoo). Yes, we've only been there six weeks ago, but they had so many newborns this year...plus we hold a season ticket, we figured we ought to drop by. And what a perfect day we had. Very active animals, our first ever, rather impressive, elephant stampede (wow. and...loud!!) plus the Red-crowned Crane chicks? Compare the pics to six weeks ago, trust me...

Tierpark - That's the Zoo of Hamburg. One of the oldest zoos in Germany, and in my opinion definitely one of the best. I really, really love the orangutan area, it's an open bowl/half-bowl that can be closed when it rains, otherwise...unobstructed, just a big moat. Reason being: those apes are no jumpers. How cool is that?

Our first time to Berlin, as tourists, and consequently our first time to one of the two (yes, two) Berlin Zoos. It's a pity that the Zoo of Germany's capital has such a lot left to be desired what modern Zoos already have to offer. Here's hoping they get the funding to improve.

Finally their winter break was over and we got the chance to visit this particularly nice place for the first time. It's a zoo, specialized on birds. They currently have 4.800 of them and each and every one of them is worth seeing. Trust me.

Yet another zoo in our vicinity - this time a 30 mile trip to Gelsenkirchen. They don't have a huge variety of animals but rather focus on large areas to keep them in, making their living conditions a tad more habitable and, dare I say, nice.
Place is called 'zoom' because you can actually get rather close to most animals...a claim they actually deliver on. We will return, sooner rather than later.
Place is called 'zoom' because you can actually get rather close to most animals...a claim they actually deliver on. We will return, sooner rather than later.