Recently my roommate and I were trying to decide what to do with ourselves on a sunny Sunday morning. My friend was making breakfast as we brainstormed. She mentioned that she had recently heard about a monkey park somewhere, and we both thought "monkeys? In the Netherlands?"

My roommate was cooking up her egg and matzoh cracker scramble, a Jewish traditional meal. We were both feeling pretty lazy, and although the ideas sounded great, the motivation was lacking.. I was reading the matzoh package when I noticed a picture of a monkey on a peel-off sticker. It was in fact a coupon for discounted admission to the monkey park! Once we finished laughing, we decided that we could not ignore such a sign, so we went to the train station and took the first one we could find to Apeldoorn.

Once there, we then had to take a bus, for about 25 mins. The price for admission to the park is 16 euros for adults, with reduced prices for seniors and children. They also offer guided tours in English, and the area itself offers excellent camping if you would like to make it a weekend trip.

Once inside, you can walk around and see the many different kinds of monkeys, gorillas, and others, most of which are in large pens just like any traditional zoo. Yet some of the monkeys, the spider monkeys, roam free, free enough to come and snatch your wallet or camera! Recently, park officials decided to train the monkeys to stop touching humans, to our great disappointment. They do this by arming staff with water squirt guns and using them on any frisky monkeys. At any rate, they still run all around you, and are just an arm's length away.

We had a great time. You can find out further details by visiting the Apenheul website . The park is open from 9:30 to 5. I hope you enjoy it as much as we did!