Tierpark Hellabrunn

 With B out of town for the weekend and the sun shining in Munich, the girls and I decided that a trip to the zoo was in order this past Saturday.  Since we were settling in last summer/fall and the weather turned unexpectedly nasty fairly early on, we had not visited in the 10 months we have lived here.  It was time to remedy this fact by spending an afternoon among the wildlife.

Based along the banks of the Isar river, the zoo is ranked the 4th best in all of Europe and we can see why after our visit.   The enclosures are mostly cage-free, relying on moats to keep the animals safe, and they use the clean river as drinking water, making the zoo an open-air oasis for the animals - and humans.  Also, as the first zoo in the world that mixed species within habitats, it is not like all of the other zoo's you may have been to.  They have made it very easy to get up close to the animals and not have to see them through bars or glass (though some were obviously still kept out of reach).

We wandered around for hours and still did not get to see all of the animals.  I guess that just means a trip back is in our future.

 What is cuter than baby goats?

Maybe a goat that photobombs you -

If he is going to photobomb you anyway, you might as well take a selfie.

 This guy was guarding the exit.

 These guys were butting heads over something.  I guess they just didn't see eye to eye (lol)

 MadHatter's three favorite - the penguins, this bird and his mohawk and the rainbow fish, just like the one in the book.

We realized it was feeding time so we stopped for a snack of our own...

and crossed the hanging bridge to see the monkeys...

 St1nkerbell's favorites - the monkey's and the baby polar bear (playing with his food)

 These guys were also playing (fighting) with their food...which just happened to be one of these guys...

 I will post some more pictures in the next post - some of my favorite snapshots from the day.

Monkeying Around

We had been in Florida for a week or so when we started to feel like we should probably do something other than lay out in the sun and play in the ocean/pool (though the girls weren't sure why we had to do this).  As we were batting around ideas of what we could do that would get us out of the house, Grampa mentioned the zoo just up the road in Naples and we knew we had our afternoon planned.

We got there just after an early lunch (we stopped on our way to satisfy one of my stateside cravings - Culvers).  Once at the zoo we  on and went in search of the animals.  And for many of them we had to really search as it was a hot day, it was just after lunch and they were all off napping.  Luckily, we made it in time for the Meet the Animals show which allowed us an up close and cage free view of some of the animals.  Including the sloth, which made MadHatter squirm in delight as it is one of her favorite animals and being thisclose was a dream.

After the show, we found that more of the animals were awake and ready to be seen.  We even got a chance to feed the giraffes a light snack!

It was a great, albeit hot, afternoon of family fun.  We got to see some animals we had never seen before in any of our other zoo visits around the globe (Malayan Tigers!  Sloth!) and generally just had a great time.  Of course, the girls were right back in the pool once we got home but at least we got them out for a different sort of fun.