Some basics

Its been now over a week that we have been in Germany. I barely had time to read through other great blogs or to even make some drafts for new articles. The past week has been busy with renovation work such as carrying a lot of the previous owner’s furniture out, cleaning the roof in the apartment due to 40 years of smoking inside, ripping the wallpapers of and tiles from the kitchen and bathroom. All this does not appear to be that much but it was each day 12 hours of work. And believe it or not, mother-in-law was helping us pretty much with the wallpapers!

The Zoo

Even though we were so busy we had time to visit Hagenbeck Zoo in Hamburg. It is a pretty famous Zoo which started out 1863 and was officially founded in 1907, furthermore those open enclosures for animals which are often used now were “developed” there. The park is also pretty big for a Zoo which is nowadays within the borders of a big city. It spans over 25 hectares (~62 Acres) with all kinds of animals from around the world. On the premises itself many animals such as peacocks, chickens and the Patagonian mara are running around freely so in some lucky cases you can even touch them.

Besides the main Zoo there is also the Tropical-Aquarium however we were not able to go there as it took us already nearly 6 hours to go around the park and in the end we just were too exhausted. I would have loved to go to this Tropical-Aquarium as I had heard many good things about but maybe next time, as we will live after this summer only around 40 min away from Hamburg.

The Animals

It was very nice to go around as you have rarely and cage bars or similar in between the animals and yourself (actually only the bird enclosures have to safety measurements). We had a good view at each enclosure and could see all of the animals. I am saying this as I have been in many Zoos before where I saw in the whole day maybe only a handful of animals.

At Hagenbeck are Tigers, Lions, Bears, Horses, Giraffes, penguins, Orangutans, Elephants and and and, especially nice it was at the Elephant enclosure as most of them were standing at the moats and the visitors could feed them (with food sold near the enclosure, so no bad stuff here) and even touch their trunks. To prevent any kind of accidents several Park employees were standing behind the animals to check that nothing happens or that anyone gives them some bad food.

My wife also enjoyed her favorite animal, the Alpaca. Especially the Chinese “nickname” for the animals is pretty amusing 草泥马，cao ni ma which made the alpaca famous in Chinese forums. Mother-in-law also found some new friends, the goats. In the Zoo you can enter the goat enclosure and also feed them. As soon as she saw that you can enter the cage she ran in and we pretty much had to drag her out of there to go on…

Our little baby

We were there with the whole family so naturaly little Nathan had to come with us. We left our pram in Finland so I had to use some kind of baby carrier for the chest. Thankfully he is only around 6 kg at the moment so I managed the day relatively pain-free but as Nathan is only 7 weeks old he did not really see any animal. He was more concerned with sleeping the entire time. Later, when he is old enough we will go there again!

What to remember

We were a medium sized group (7+baby) but already this size can get annoying at time as some people prefer walking onwards wheras others want to check out the animals for some longer time.

Furthermore you should eat before going to the Zoo or have something small with you. Not that the prices in the Zoo for food are that high but because there are just too many people lining up to buy food. Besides, lining up for the food and eating it adds up easily to one hour of lost time you could spend going around.

For some further information check wikipedia or the German website