Zoo Map at Dvur Kralove, 27/08/12

snowleopard said:

Thanks Maguari! I can always count on you to respond with an informative posting that is packed full of great information. I even copied and pasted your Czech. Rep. report so that I have a mini-reference guide for the future. Also, I have a top 20 list from you that you sent me via a private message a couple of years ago and I wonder if your love for Czech Rep. zoos will have affected the zoos on that list. Perhaps Prague and Plzen will be even higher?

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Sorry, somehow missed out the first reply I had to reply to (if you follow!).

All I can say is Prague and Pilsen already couldn't get much higher when I did that list - they are probably actually the 'safest' of my top 5 now.

(Is Prague the best zoo in Europe? I'd find it hard to argue against.)

Maguari said:

This is the list (alphabetically - NOT in order of preference!) I sent to snowleopard way back in 2010:

1- Arnhem
2- Basel
3- Berlin (East)
4- Berlin (West)
5- Chester
6- Leipzig
7- Prague
8- Rotterdam
9- Vienna
10- Zurich
11- Antwerp
12- Cologne
13- Dvur Kravlove
14- Edinburgh
15- Emmen
16- Hannover
17- London
18- Nuremberg
19- Stuttgart
20- Wuppertal

My actual 'top 5' has been, generally, pretty stable at (in alphabetical order) Berlin, Berlin, Pilsen, Prague, Rotterdam ever since I first visited Pilsen. The next five, on reflection, are probably Arnhem, Cologne, Vienna, Wuppertal, Zurich (so just one Swiss and four German).

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My ‘top 20’ European zoos had been a very stable list for a good few years until I had my first visit to Plzen a couple of weeks ago. That zoo immediately became not only one of my top twenty but also my top five.

Perhaps not surprisingly, my list of favourite European zoos is actually very similar to yours. You list the two Berlins, Plzen, Rotterdam and Prague in your top five; mine would be the two Berlins, Plzen, Rotterdam and Vienna - but Prague would be there in my top ten.

Of your 'top 20' European zoos from your 2010 list, seventeen would also feature in my 'top 20' too. I was initially astonished that Frankfurt was missing from your list, it seemed a surprising omission to me, but then I read that you’d drawn up this list before you’d visited there. If you were to add Frankfurt to your list then (depending on what zoo it replaced) we’d probably have eighteen of our twenty in common.

Maguari said:

I really enjoyed Planckendael, but it would be a little lower (perhaps I need a summer visit and some Slender-horned Gazelles to bump it up the list a bit!). But, yes, Belgium is a good 'dark horse' contender.

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I’ve thoroughly enjoyed all my visits to Planckendael but think it would just miss my top twenty. Frustratingly on my last visit there I failed to see any slender-horned gazelles despite repeatedly returning to their enclosure -but I have seen them there a number of times on previous visits.

Looking at your list Maguari, if everyone could name a list of top European zoos, that would pretty much be it Nuremberg is a surprise to me and no Frankfurt, Copenhagen and Beauval for example, but there are perhaps 2 out of those you have not visited.
I have a feeling this could go on and on and..........................

P.S Is a tour de France perhaps on the cards?

kiang said:

Looking at your list Maguari, if everyone could name a list of top European zoos, that would pretty much be it Nuremberg is a surprise to me and no Frankfurt, Copenhagen and Beauval for example, but there are perhaps 2 out of those you have not visited.
I have a feeling this could go on and on and..........................

P.S Is a tour de France perhaps on the cards?

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Frankfurt, as noted, was only missing 'cos I hadn't been there when I did the list!

Copenhagen is a close contender, it's true. Beauval I've yet to visit.

As for a French trip, it has indeed been mooted and is arguably overdue - apart from one trip to Mulhouse I've not been to a French zoo since 2002. There has been a tentative invitation for Zoohistorica to come to a French zoo, probably in 2015, and if so it may be that a full-scale tour waits until then.