Colin and Cecile Travels

 Started the day off with Rain, so our walking tour was a bit wet. It was however a nice tour hitting some of the highlights of Amsterdam.  Amsterdam, A city of canals, over 65 miles of canals.  Most of the old city was built in the 17th century, with skinny buildings next to or against each other.  Our guide told us that the reason they are so skinny is that the tax was based on the width of the roof, so they built them skinny, tall and deep. Heading for the old town, our hotel is in the modern part of the city. with the boom in the River Cruise industry, the city build a river cruise terminal and docks for the many boats the arrive here. So Viking uses the hotel, right next to the Cruise Terminal. We pretty much had to walk single file because of the vehicle and bike traffic.  As you can see from the pictures, most of the roads are Brick. The flowers are starting to come into bloom. Typical of many of the canals, there are streets along each side (one way traf...

 Off on a new trip. A Viking River Cruise from Amsterdam to Budapest with an Extension in Prague.  We got off to a little of a rough start in that our flight from Knoxville to Atlanta which was supposed to leave at 1 PM  did not leave until after 4 PM.  That meant our 4 PM flight out of Atlanta left before we arrived. Delta put us on a different flight and we got into Amsterday about 10:30 AM.  We are doing the three day extension precruise as well so are staying in the Movenpick Hotel in Amsterdam. Knoxville Airport Had their Bears wearing Bunny Ears for Easter We had a three hour Layover in Atlanta so we took advantage of Delta's First Class Lounge. Full Bar . Fresh Baked Cookies and Brownies Full Buffet Had to try the Chef's special of the day Pork dish called Pork-Loin Pipian The Bears are Happy to be travelling again We are on the 17th floor of the hotel so have some great views from our room Four of the Viking Longboats are docked right next to the hotel. ...

After a month of travelling around Morocco, Zak and Sarah decided the final day would be a relaxing wind down day, so off the the Rabat Zoo we went.  This is one of the nicest well kept zoos we have ever visited.  The animals are well cared for and the zoo is clean and layed out in a logical manner. In front of the zoo is a statue of the Barbary Lion, now extinct in the wild, but there are a small number in zoos, so there is an active breeding progran to bring them back and possibly in the future return some to the wild. Rather than calling it a zoo, they refer to the zoo as a Zoological Garden Picture at the entrance of a Barbary lion that once lived at the zoo The picture makes it look darker than it appeared in person, but this was a white Camel Always love the mischievious Meerkats North African Baboon The storks have taken up voluntary residency in the zoo grounds A couple of white porcupines a young Serval   Storks everywhere They had two male Giraffs out on display...