A series of short blog posts about our life in Germany.
Last Thursday we went to Tierpark Hellabrun, the Munich zoo. I was surprised by how much I enjoyed the visit — I’m not a zoo person, normally, but I gladly spent four full hours seeing every part of the park with Alex and Eric. The zoo has a good selection of animals nicely arranged in thematic units (geographic regions plus the primates), but what really won me over were several smart decisions by the designers of the zoo:
- There’s a petting zoo right at the entrance. Nothing in the whole park was more exciting for zoo lovers (read: Alex), or engaging for those slightly skeptical (read: me) than actually running your hands through a goat’s fur and feeling its tongue lick food from your hand. Kicking off with a chance to feed and pet the goats was brilliant. (One particularly clever kid — goat, not human — always cleaned out the food dispenser after each use, and the rest would crowd around yo
u and jump up in their eagerness for the fifty-cent handful of treats.) - Speaking of money, the park food was both good and reasonably priced. The biergarten (yes, they have a biergarten) and the other concessions sold food and drinks for quite normal prices. Next to the polar bears, for instance, you could get tasty, freshly made spring rolls (in a nifty edible container, no less) for under three euros.
- Villa Dracula.
We saw Villa Dracula on the map as soon as we walked in, but decided to see the entire park and get there when we got there. Our route took us through the European section, followed by a stop for snacks at the Biergarten and at the Arctic section (polar bears!). We also took in more petting zoo action at the children’s section, which had little chicks and other cute animals as well as horses, goats, and other friendlies. Finally, though, it was time to cross the river, turn right at the tigers, and enter Villa Dracula.
The smell hit us as soon as we passed through the heavy plastic supermarket-like flaps. I’d never smelled “sickly sweet” before, but this was definitely it — fruity and disgusting at the same time. ”Bats have weird-smelling shit,” I thought. To our right was a bat sign and an entrance to a cave-like chamber filled with people and noise and the occasional shrieks. Inside the bat cave, we found the creatures’ home and the real source of the smell: rotting bananas suspended from the ceiling above dark water, dim lights, and bats flying around over our heads.
That’s right: we were in there with the bats.
And that, as they say, is why the Munich Zoo is awesome.