Spain 2016 - Aymonte zoo and Casa Grande

Nicky and I headed into to town today just to wander and take pictures. We stopped in at the tourist  bureau and found out that there are no boat trips up the Guardiana River in the off season, so that strikes that off the itinerary. Walking behind the tourist office we found this lovely statue.

We kept saying that all our pictures would have looked better today, with blue sky behind.

Stone tears.

We walked all the way around the block, almost back to the tourist office, and found the entrance to the zoo. It's free, you just walk in. No dogs or bicycles allowed. Closed Tuesday and Sunday.

A small herd of deer.

Got an itch I just gotta scratch.

I just figured out the photo editor on my netbook and am playing with it. This has a filter added.

I'm looking at you looking at me.

There were 4 ostrich.

One lioness asleep on the grass in her enclosure with her tail twitching. The highlight for me was the tiger. I love tigers and took lots and lots of pictures.

Huge paws.

Licking him or herself, just like the big cat he (or she) is.

I was taking the pictures through glass so there's a bit of a reflection but the glass did allow us to be really close. On looking closely we could see that the tiger was probably blind. One eye didn't look right and the other was completely opaque.

Still a beautiful creature.

The bears were asleep, just a pile of brown fur. The baboons are really rather ugly so I didn't take many pictures. The zoo is old and the enclosures are small and, as usual, I feel a bit sorry for the animals but when I noticed the tiger was blind I thought it wasn't probably likely to run around a huge amount. All of the animals looked healthy; not overweight, not too skinny, glossy coats or feathers.
From the zoo we walked across the river and up a road to Casa Grande.

 

It was built by Manuel Rivero González, a local merchant, about the year 1745. It is now the home of the offices of culture for Ayamonte.

It has concert and exhibition space and lots of art. Surprisingly none of the art was identified in terms of artist or even the title of the piece.

Lovely interior courtyard.

Over the door.

A wide range of art from local scenes to

carnival posters (this ones for you, Heather) to

antique furniture to

dark religious paintings to

a variety of modern paintings.

Reminded me of the kiteboarders at home.

I love this one, the movement of the old and new boats towards Ayamonte.

This was an interesting painting as the foreground was a bit blurry looking and the sharpest detail was in the tiles and stonework behind. Almost like a photograph with the focus at the wrong depth.

On the way back to the car we found a similar bench.