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The Artis, short for Natura Artis Magistra (Latin for "Nature is the teacher of the Arts") is the oldest Zoo in the Netherlands and one of the oldest Zoos in mainland Europe. I love a good Zoo visit so we made the time to go visit it while we were there.
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The Artis possesses not just the zoo but an aquarium (which I will cover in a separate post) a planetarium .. and a camel. Actually there were two.. camels that is.
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For our visit today we would end up just going around the Zoo seeing all the animals and spend a bit of time in the Aquarium looking at all the fish and and being very jealous of the nice cool water they get to swim in, oblivious to the 30+ Celsius heat outside.
They had this other thing.. called "lemurland" which was actually just a little island space that you wander about and the lemurs just hang out there.. no cages, nothing separating you from the lemurs. I was taking a picture of this guy and another one snuck up behind the missus giving her a fright! I don't think she realised they were 'free range'.
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They were amazingly chill creatures too.. I am not sure if it had to do with the heat that day or if they're always that laid back .. but it looked like a cozy life.
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This guy cracked me up... I just kept thinking "Draw me like one of your french girls.."
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Being an old zoo it naturally has some interesting elements outside of displaying animals in cages... this victorian garden for example.. though I don't think they call it 'victorian' in the Netherlands .. that's more of a British thing.
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He just reminds me of Melvin from Madagascar.
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The Elephants were awesome .. and pretty playful.. they were splashing water on themselves to keep cool...
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But they were also trying to scare the ducks by throwing water at them..
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..and it worked! Look at that smug little smile on the Elephant's face.. he took pleasure in scaring off those ducks! The little scamp!
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The Sea Lions were awesome .. or are those seals? I can't remember now .. they were awesome .. and probably far more relaxed than the other animals .. I would be too if I had a private pool!
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He's the king of the hill.. and he knows it!
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Just around the corner from those guys we have the Red Pandas.. they're so damn cute... I want one for a pet .. but it was so hot in the Zoo that they were just lying there trying to keep cool, so we didn't get to see much of them. I have made a note to return the next time I am in Amsterdam to see them again.
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A lot of the architecture and the layout of the zoo is quite old.. this is the bird enclosure which houses some birds of paradise.
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This fella was the only one that was hanging around though .. I have no idea what happened to the other birds, but this guy seemed to be quite content having the place to himself.
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Check out this cute little meerkat.. a friend of mine once encountered a guy in the park that actually had a meerkat as a pet and taken it out for a walk.. it was a bit surreal.
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Can you tell I am running out of things to say? Well we are nearly at the end! Look! Raccoons.. and a skunk! Luckily no one got sprayed by the skunk.
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Here's a very old and very pretty bandstand randomly situated in the middle of the zoo .. it would be awesome to see it in active use with a real band playing .. I wonder if they every do..
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Here's the last shot for this post, it was taken as we walked back towards the main gates of the place... Check out the blonde guy's hair.. how wild is that lol!
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