At the end of May 2007 we flew to Andalusia for a 10-day holiday. We stayed outside of Beas, a village about 50 minutes west of Sevilla. We flew to Malaga on Thursday 17 May with Vueling, Spain’s new low-cost airline. Vueling claims to be Europe’s ‘next generation’ budget airline, and though we are not sure what that means, our flight was quite pleasant and we would surely fly with Vueling again in the future. More »

Last week we came back from a vacation in Andalucia in Spain. The area is perfect for birding. Highlights for us were the Purple Gallinule, Red-knobbed Coot and Azure-winged Magpie. Another great sight were the hundreds of Stork nests on almost every electricity pole along the highway between Sevilla and Huelva. Here is a list of some great places to go birdwatching. More »

Today we came across a strange attraction when driving from Leidschendam to Voorschoten. Vlinders aan de Vliet (Butterflies along the Vliet [river]) is an enclosed tropical garden in a large greenhouse with hundreds of beautiful butterflies. Here are some photos of our visit.

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Last Sunday we visited Texel! We first took an early train (7:00) from Leiden to Den Helder, which lies in the northern-most tip of Noord Holland. On the way we saw a Spoonbill and our first Crane (Kraanvogel). When we arrived in Den Helder, we took a bus to the harbor and there stepped onto the TESO ferry to Texel, which is the largest and most populated of the Dutch Frisian Islands and also the westernmost of this archipelago, which extends to Denmark. More »

Last Saturday we visited one of twenty national parks in the Netherlands, Veluwezoom. We used the NS Lentetoer to travel by train from Leiden to Rheden (Lentetour is a special spring train ticket that allows two persons unlimited travel around the country for €35 in first class). More »

The saga of the Rotterdam ‘parkshuttle’ continues. After nearly eight years of setbacks (including the December 2005 crash), the driverless robot buses — that are supposed to bring commuters from a metro station to an office park on a two-kilometer special road — takes another blow as the company that made the buses has filed for bankruptcy. More »

More new birds have been added to Birdorable, including several cute parrots and parakeets. The collection now includes a Yellow-crested Cockatoo, Scarlet Macaw, Monk Parakeet (pictured here), Peach-faced Lovebird, African Grey Parrot, Sun Conure, Rose-ringed Parakeet and Red-masked Parakeet. Birdorables are cute and colorful birds you might find in your backyard or when you go birding. They have been cutified closely matching the natural shapes and colors of the bird. Visit the Meet the Birds page to view all 38 different Birdorable birds.

After Germany and Poland, Comedy Central will now also start in the Netherlands. The new TV channel, owned by MTV Networks, will start on 30 April and will broadcast on an existing channel only from 8pm to 5am every day. They have just launched their website at comedycentral.nl where you can see their TV schedule. This includes That 70s Show, Saturday Night Live, The Office US and The Daily Show with Jon Stewart. More »

Park World has a very cool report with figures for theme park attendance over 2006. Eight of the top ten parks are Disney; Walt Disney World’s Magic Kingdom tops the list with 16,640,000 visitors. I was also surprised to see that Disneyland Paris wasn’t doing all that bad at number five in the world with 10,600,000 visitors, just ahead of Epcot’s 10,460,000. More »

Check out this article from the Guardian about an unusual wildlife operation. More »