You might be wondering why today’s post starts with a German (book) title, while all the others were in English. I decided to use it, because it is probably one of the most famous public transport stations in all of Berlin. Of course some other stations are widely know as well, but because of the book and a movie based on the story happening in and around the Zoologischer Garten station, it’s known all around the world.
I have to admit that I haven’t read the book or seen the movie (yet), but I do know in general what the story is all about. It revolves mainly around drugs, prostitution and other deeds that those teenagers from the 70’s had to do to get the drugs.
But enough about that, another reason why I chose this title for the post is, as I’ve said yesterday, that we went to visit the Berlin Zoo today. And the closest station to the Zoo is the Zoologischer Garten, where the story took place.
Our day today started around the same time as yesterday, maybe about half an hour earlier, because we were told that we should be at the Zoo at 9 o’clock sharp, otherwise the queues get longer and longer and we’d have to wait much more. We arrived at the Elefantentor (the Elephant Door/Gate) entrance 10 minutes before 9 and we were actually the first ones there. By the time the Zoo opened, there were about 7 or 8 other people in the queue behind us, which means it wasn’t as bad as we thought. And another thing, why we decided to get there that early was the information we got before heading there, that we were going to need something like 6 hours to take a look at everything, and I would agree with that, if you really take your time to read every sign at every animal enclosure. Berlin Zoo has two entrances that you can get in through, the one we used (Elefantentor), and the Löwentor (the Lion Door/Gate). Although, you could also use the third option, entering through the Berlin Aquarium, but the first two are the main entrances, if you only want to see the Zoo itself, without going to the Aquarium.
The combined entrance fee (for the Zoo and the Aquarium) costs 21€ per person, because we have our Berlin WelcomeCards (I’ll explain that in another post), we paid 17.6€ per person. You sure get a lot of value for your money, but I’m not that impressed with the quality of it. Bear with me till the end of the post, or at least until I finish with the rest of our trip to the Zoo, to give my verdict on everything.
First, we decided to go to the Aquarium, to get that out of the way, before it gets too crowded, and then see the rest of the animals that the Zoo is the home to. I had some expectations, or should I say hopes, of what we could see at the Aquarium, and some of the expectations have been met, but nowhere near all of them. The Aquarium doesn’t include only aquatic animals, as you would’ve expected, but you can also find reptiles and some bugs and insects there. It doesn’t really have much to do with aquatics but I guess they knew what they were doing. The one thing that did fascinate me, and frighten me a bit, I’m not going to lie 😀 was that at the entrance of the Aquarium, they set up a small pool, let’s call it, with decent size fish in there and you can sit on the ledge right next to it, put your hand in the water and the fish will actually come to you and try to “eat” your finger and swim around your hand like it’s nothing.
After seeing all of that, it took us about an hour to get through it all, it was finally time to go take a look at all the other animals in the Zoo. Since you already know I love (most) animals, I couldn’t wait to get going and see what the Zoo has to offer. We weren’t that interested in all of the species there so we skipped a few and made it all the way around in 3 hours, with the total time spent at both of the sights being 4 hours.
As mentioned above, I saw a panda for the first time in my life today. That was one of the animals that I was looking forward to seeing the most! 🙂 My aunt said she read that people are not supposed to take pictures of the pandas, they currently have 2, but since a lot of other visitors today did take them anyway, so did I. 😀
These are just a couple of photos taken at the Zoo, there will be more coming to my Instagram, so check it out and follow me on there to see all the photos. 🙂
Aaaand now, my verdict. Honestly, I was a bit dissapointed with the whole experience. It all started with the Aquarium, I was expecting to see a lot more big fish that there actually are, but okay, it’s also understandable that for that you need a much larger place and everything. If I compare this Zoo with the one in Ljubljana, only by what you can actually see at both places, I would most likely choose Ljubljana Zoo each and every time. The fact is that it’s much smaller and doesn’t have that many different animal species, but it just feels somewhat better. Today, since it was a hot day, I wouldn’t want to exaggerate but I’d say that almost half of the animals were either hiding in the shade or they were inside of their buildings, where, of course, average visitors have no access. Again, that’s totally understandable, even I would do the same in their position! 😀
That was basically the last thing on our wishlist for this trip, after leaving the Zoo, that’s also why the rest of the day was pretty uneventful, we only went to do some souvenir shopping and that was it. After the visit to the Zoo, we also had to say goodbye to my aunt and her friend, which I would also like to thank for everything, again, during those few days here, and hopefully we won’t have to travel to another far away city to be able to see each other again. 😀
Now, all that is left for us tomorrow is packing our bags, checking out of the hotel and wander around the city for a few more hours before flying back to Venice in the evening. I do have some more plans for the day, but you’re just going to have to wait until Friday morning for the last day’s post, since I probably won’t post it before I get back home and get some much needed rest. Until then, enjoy the rest of your evening, night or morning, whenever you are reading this. 🙂
Blogging with Jure 