Get update alerts
Locations
- .All Trips
- Art
- Car Culture
- Central America/Caribbean
- Food
- Food Tour
- Pic of the Week
- Sl;ovenia
.All Trips / Europe / Spain
The Critters of La Sagrada Familia, Barcelona
Gaudi’s fabulous La Sagrada Familia cathedral is well known for its innovative architecture. Gaudi was a fan of nature and tried to incorporate elements of it in his buildings.
While visiting La Sagrada Familia, I notice a veritable zoo’s worth of animal designs incorporated into the structure. Some, like a turtle bearing a pillar or reptiles crawling the exterior of the building are quite obvious. Most subtle and interesting were the insects and other small creatures incorporated into some of the metalwork around the doors.
(Exterior detail of lizard, La Sagrada Familia)
Look carefully at the images below and see how many different types of critters you can see in and on the great …
Tagged animals, architecture, Barcelona, Gaudi, La Sagrada Famlia
.All Trips / California / North America / Southwestern USA
A Day at the San Diego Zoo Safari Park
The San Diego Zoo Safari Park is found near Escondido, California, about a half hour’s drive northeast of San Diego and its world famous San Diego Zoo.
I’ve visited the San Diego Zoo Safari Park about a half dozen times in the past 35 years and really enjoyed every visit. When we first came to the park decades ago the place was known as San Diego Wild Animal Park, but in 2010 the name was changed because some people were apparently getting it and the zoo confused. This is not the zoo — it’s where you can go on a (sort-of) safari. But at either place you’ll have the chance to see a large quantity and variety of …
Tagged animals, birds, Escondido, Park, Safari Park, San Diego, San Diego Zoo, San Diego Zoo Safari Park, wildlife
“Pic of the Week”, June 7,2019: Conservation Carousel, San Diego Zoo Safari Park
My wife and I share an affection for carousels. She’s in love with carousel horses (we have one standing in our entryway). I have a greater interest in a larger variety of carousel animals.
So you can see from these images that the lovely carousel in San Diego’s Zoo Safari Park really appealed to me. It’s themed “conservation carousel” and contains 60 mostly rare and endangered animals that can take you for a ride. An appropriate menagerie of critters for this terrific family travel-friendly destination.
(Click on thumbnails to enlarge, right arrow to advance)
Jun 7, 2019
Comments Off on “Pic of the Week”, June 7,2019: Conservation Carousel, San Diego Zoo Safari Park
.All Trips / California / North America / Southwestern USA
San Diego, California: A Day at the Zoo
Among my fondest memories as a child are family visits to the zoo. I was fascinated by it all! The sights, the sounds, the smells, the people, and especially by the exotic animals. It seemed a grand adventure and I think may have helped germinate the traveler seed in me — I wanted to see these animals in the places they’d come from.
I’ve since visited many of these animals in their homelands over the years, and as I’ve grown older my perspectives on zoos have changed somewhat, especially after seeing some terrible ones in poorer nations where animals are kept in little more than small square cages (prisons really). I’ve developed a great empathy for these captive animals and believe …
Tagged animals, Balboa Park, California, San Diego Zoo, Zoo
