A sluggish-but-slowly-showing-signs-of-recovering economy won’t stop families from traveling in 2010—but we’re definitely looking for value in the trips we plan. That means we’re shopping for great deals and seeking locales that appeal to toddlers through teens all at once—and in some instances, they might be trendy destinations we see on TV or the big screen. All eyes will be on Vancouver and Whistler in February during the Winter Olympic Games. I love watching the sports events on television, but I equally enjoy the little segments that show the area’s local color and sightseeing highlights. I bet images of Vancouver’s scenic coastline and the rugged Coast Mountains will result in a tourism boom. Vancouver offers active families opportunities to whale watch, kayak, and hike in summer, and all sorts of snow sports in the winter.

•    Belize: This Central American invites one to watch out sharks off of Ambergris Caye, and the lush rainforest and “cave tubing” through bat-filled tunnels all that is loved by a school going kid.

•    Hawaii: This is the unique place where families can go for the sun, surf and sand. There you can enjoy the touring volcanoes, swimming in waterfalls and sipping frothy drinks beneath the palm trees.

•    Branson, Missouri: The real music city of the world abounds in mini-golf courses and go-kart tracks, to the area around amusement parks. After the artificial recreation you further can go for the local lakes as well as recreation trails for fishing, boating, hiking, horseback riding and biking.

•    Washington’s Olympic Peninsula: The Olympic Peninsula, especially the towns of Forks, LaPush, and Port Angeles, where the actual and the entire action take place. You can enjoy all there including rainforest valleys, glacier-capped peaks and pristine wilderness of entire Olympic National Park.

•    Any U.S. National Park: If you wish to have any treatable idea then the US National Parks are the very noble ideas there to have a thrust upon. The visit to any of the National Park in US let you the have the craggy coastline in Acadia, towering peaks in Glacier, and stunning wildlife in the Everglades. You can choose from one like Grand Canyon, Bryce Canyon, Capitol Reef, Canyonlands and Arches.

•    Washington, D.C.: The capital of the Unites States is filled up of the museums that interest a lot to the school going children, some of the popular museums are the National Air & Space Museum and the National Museum of Natural History, with addition to the national monuments and the National Zoo.

•  Germany in winter: Next your favorite destination is the Tour of Germany in winter. The awesome Christmas markets there get organized throughout the Germany in the weeks which leads up to the December 25 holiday.  Typically, the outdoor events are used to be organized at the town’s main square, and each market is there is extraordinary that even shows up the typical character of the region where it lives around.

•    Italy: To its true fashion Italy is world’s tour capital. There are too many wonders to explore in Italy on a family vacation and tour. One can hike around Cinque Terre, ride gondolas in Venice, learn about art form in Florence. I may also go for a packaged family vacation as they are offered by Adventures from Disney.

•    Colorado: The place has a lot to offer for all your traveling rollercoaster. It has the memorable ski resorts in the known and popular Rocky Mountains. You can visit the place for the stellar skiing and snowboarding in fluffy powder, plus ice skating, snowmobiling and dog-sledding. This tour would let you to enjoy more things as Frisbee golf, bungee trampolines and myriad hiking and mountain-biking trails.

The city of Antwerp provides a guest a whole lot of mixture of economic wealth and the relaxed and pleasant atmosphere. Antwerp provides a good range of cultural and recreational experiences. The city has many a good number of historical buildings, theaters, museums and cosy streets. The city also has and is filled with many sporting activities for persons that are keen and love sporting activities.

The inhabitiants of Antwerp as they are known to be Flemish are fond of the good things in life. They love cosy atmosphere that there is reflected through the abundance of pubs. For the cultural satisfaction in Antwerp one can there indulge in the activities like Theatre, opera and film and to an extent for the specialist audiences that all are available in abundance in Antwerp. The city also provides a good number of exhibitions and other cultural events as well. For its cultural life Antwerp is very proud of the rich historical heritage that is associated to it. In the 17th century about a good number of popular painters, sculptors, instrument builders and printers were born and lived around in Antwerp. Rubens, Jordaens, Van Dyck, Jan Breugel and Erasmus II Quellinus are a few of the most noted painters of the time who lived and worked in Antwerp.

The city has many a good number of museums and churches in the city that preserves the magnificent art treasures. There is the Royal Museum of Fine Arts in the south district close to a good number of municipal and provincial museums, ranging from the ethnological, to photography and contemporary art. The Middelheim open air park of sculpture, that has also its biannual contemporary sculpture exhibition, too is quite popular with masses. Another better way to learn about the Antwerp is through its activities of celluloid, film, theatre and concert life. Large theatres and opera houses in the city include the Flemish Opera, the international Art Centre “deSingel”, the Queen Elisabeth Auditorium, the City Theatre and the Bourla Playhouse.

The famous Flemish Opera house has its own orchestra and choir with an annual repertoire. “deSingel” is a cultural centre in the city with a international program of contemporary art, performing dance, theatre, music and architectural exhibitions. In addition, many other smaller but rather interesting theatre houses and companies can be seen all around the city. The Departement of Drama, Music and Dance of the Hogeschool Antwerp held a number of student’s performances that are open for public on minimal charges or absolutely free. In summer, carillon (bell-ringing) concerts are organized on at every Monday at the cathedral of Our Lady and gathers massive crowd to watch the concert.

Antwerpen-Centraal (Antwerp Central) is the primary name of the major railway station in the Antwerp. The station is run under the supervision of the national railway company SNCB. The present railway station is constructed on the site of the terminus of the Brussels-Mechelen-Antwerp Railway. The stone laded terminus buildings, that has a massive dome above the waiting room was designed by Louis  Delacenserie and the massive 185 metres long and 44 metres high iron and glass trainshed by Clement van Bogaert. The viaduct into the station is another important creation designed and made by the local architect Jan Van Asperen.

The station is presently is praised as the one of the finest examples of railway architecture in Belgium. It the year 1998, the station witnessed another reconstruction activity for converting the station only from a terminal to a full fledged station. A new tunnel was dug through the Berchem station in the south of the city and Antwerpen Dam station in the north as passing under Central station having station on two underground levels. This led to the Thalys. HSL 4 and HSL-Zuid high speed trains to travel and pass through the Antwerp Central station without any need to turn around. The station has four levels and 14 tracks arranged as briefed below.

• Level +1: The original station, 6 terminating tracks, arranged as two groups of three and separated by a central opening allowing views of the lower levels.

• Level 0: Houses ticketing facilities and commercial space.

• Level ?1: 7 m below street level, 4 terminating tracks, arranged in two pairs.

• Level ?2: 18 m below street level, 4 tracks, leading to the two tracks of the tunnel under the city (used by high-speed trains and fast domestic InterCity services.

The station due to its location, expansion and architectural design has been developed and put as into the flash mob like event at the station in early 2009 that further developed as the viral video and featured the song Do-Re-Mi from the Rodgers and Hammerstein musical The Sound of Music. The dance was performed by around 200 dancers of various ages, and the excitement reached to its up level with the mix up of passengers with the dancers.  The video was made as to make popular, the Op zoek naar Maria, the Belgian TV version of the BBC talent competition program How Do You Solve a Problem Like Maria?, for the search of an actress to play a lead role in the revival of The Sound of Music.

The Cathedral of Our Lady is a Roman Catholic cathedral in Antwerp, Belgium. Presently known as the Diocese of Antwerp was started to be constructed in around 1352 and its first stage of construction was accomplished around in 1521. The cathedral in Gothic style was constructed by its architects Jan and Pieter Appelmans. It has a good number of works by the Baroque painter Peter Paul Rubens, as well as paintings by artists such as Otto van Veen, Jacob de Backer and Marten de Vos. The Cathedral is on the list of World Heritage Sites.

On the site of the cathedral there was a small chapel of our lady from the 9th to the 12th century that acquired the status of the parish church in 1124. It was in during the course of the twelfth century, it was thus replaced by a larger Romanesque church. In 1352, the work started for the new Our Lady’s church to make it the largest Gothic church in the Netherlands.  Initially, it was provided with two towers of equal height. In 1521, after nearly 170 years, the new church of Our Lady was restored. The south tower reached beyond as far as the third string course.

It was on the night of October 5-6, 1533, the new church was entrapped with fire. And the completion of the second tower was therefore delayed, which led to its ultimate postponement. The church became cathedral of the bishopric of Antwerp in 1559 but lost this title again from 1801 to 1961, following the Concordat of 1801. During the Iconoclasm of August 20, 1566 (at the start of the Eighty Years’ War), Protestants destroyed a large part of the cathedral interior. The restoration of Roman Catholic authority came in 1585 with the fall of Antwerp. Even during the French revolution, Our Lady’s Cathedral suffered serious damage. It was around in 1798, the French administration desired to demolish the building, however, after every blow, the cathedral was able to stand on its own. In 1816, various important works of art were returned from Paris, consisting of three Rubens masterpieces. And it was around the course of the 19th century; the church was destroyed entirely and refurnished.

Another added attraction to the museum is its choir. The cathedral’s choir started developing an active musical life, which raised the importance of cathedral’s music as much high as possible.  One of the renowned composers of the 15th century, served here as a vicar-singer in 1443, and so did Jacob Obrecht between 1492 and 1497. Among the architectural details of the church the most important is the finished spire that is 404 feet, the highest church tower in the Benelux.

Antwerp Zoo is a very popular Zoo at the center of Antwerp and is situated right straight opposite to the Antwerpen- Central railway station. It is the oldest animal park in Belgium and is one of the oldest Zoo in the world. The Zoo was founded on the oldest animal park in the country, and one of the oldest in the world, established on 21 July 1843.

Since its opening park is operated by De Koninklijke Maatschappij voor Dierkunde van Antwerpen, a society that originally is known to be Société Royale de Zoologie d’Anvers (The Antwerp Royal Society for Zoology). The zoo is also named on the name of society as well “De Zoologie”. The first motive for opening the Zoo was to encourage the zoological and botanical sciences. The first director of the zoo was the zoologist and botanist Jacques Kets. He accepted the responsibility of the Zoo only the condition as to place to preserve in Zoo, his nature-historical collections. This building was inaugurated in 1844 by H.R.H. King Léopold I of Belgium. During his tenure as a Zoo director, he encouraged the protection and preservation of animals on a recreational, educational, scientific and cultural level.

During, its first years the park expanded only from 1.59 hectares to 10.5 hectares, the notable structures from that period in the park are the Egyptian temple (1856) and the antelope building (1861) in Oriental style that now keeps the okapis. The Zoo also has a cultural division as well that used to organize concerts in the hall. Later on symphonic concerts started being organized in the Zoo. The museum building was severely demolished to develop a concert hall. The museum collections were turned to the second floor. For the 1920 Summer Olympics, at the spot the boxing and wrestling events were organized.

After the World War II, the animal park transformed into a model zoo as were adapted the modern scientific, educational, cultural and aesthetic standards. The animal compounds were provided with better light. Buildings from this period involves the primate building (1958), the big jubileum complex, established on the occasion of the 125-year anniversary together with the nocturama (1968), which houses the nocturnal animals. The jubileum complex keeps the birds of prey and the sea lions. In 1973 a new compound for reptilians was constructed.  The older primate building was renovated in 1989. In 2003 number of animals like as hippos, Malayan tapirs and a number of swamp birds get there home in Hippotopia. The Antwerp zoo too is one of the premium worlds Zoo’s for the purpose of scientific exploration and education. In 2007 the  Zoo has awarded with the most prestigious award, the ‘most romantic and best preserved 19th century zoo’, due to its beautiful garden and old architecture like the Egyptian temple,   Bird house, Aquarium, Reptile house, Hippo house and others.

The port of Antwerp, in Belgium, is a port in that is situated at straight center of Europe as accessible to the capesize ships. Antwerp is located at the upper end of the tidal estuary of the Scheldt. The estuary is navigable by ships of more than 100,000 Gross Tons and can be navigated deep into inland for about 80 km. There inland location interprets that port of Antwerp has in a location in Europe has better advantage than the most of the North Sea ports. Antwerp’s docks are connected to the hinterland by rail, waterway and road. Due to this Antwerp has developed as the Europe’s largest sea port.

With the opening of the Berendrecht Lock (1989), the right bank of the port has developed to a large extent. With a length of 500 m between the lock gates and a width of 68 m, the Berendrecht lock is the largest lock in the world. This lock has a depth of 13.50 m, and during high water this depth reaches upto about 17.75 meters. Other than the Lock, still further development has been observed and is nourished on the banks of the Scheldt as immediately outside the dock complex. Two large container terminals have already been opened there to be operated. In 1990, the Europe terminal was operative, while secondly, the North Sea terminal became operative in 1997. The older areas of the port, such as the Bonaparte dock, are there have been modernised to make then suitable for the ultra modern cargo handling operations.

The development of the Waaslandhaven on Antwerp’s left bank planned during the best business years of the nineteen-sixties. At that time, it was considered, there an agreement can be reached at with the Dutch on the construction of the Baalhoek Canal, which runs from Kallo in Belgium through the Drowned Land of Saefthinge into the Western Scheldt. Therefore the work resumed on the Kallo Lock in 1979, and by the end of the eighties the basic outlines of the Waaslandhaven were by and large complete.

After the container terminals on the right bank of the Scheldt have been saturating in their capacities, a new dock complex- the Deurganck dock was constructed at the spot. The first terminal in this dock was started on July 6, 2005. The full capacity of the dock is accounted about to around 8 to 9 million TEU. The Deurganck dock has a length of 2.5 km and is made up of about 1,200,000 cubic metres of concrete. And expansion of the port is still is full fledge as in October 2010, the port there approved a long-term investment plan, that is of the cost of about 1.6 billion Euros extending the next 15 years.