I have been to Skansen once - I think it was in 1977. But I don´t remember very much at all from that visit.
Already then, there were not that many zoo enclosures. Just as you write, Skansen is first and formost an open air museum (old buildings, exhibitions on old Swedish culture etc) and the zoo part of it is just... well "a part of it". Once upon a time, though, they used to keep elephants and chimpanzees - probably under deplorably bad conditions, I would assume. Quite possible that they even may have kept polar bears. But that is all history now.
What did you think about Skansen from a "Zoo perspective" in the year of 2009, Susan?
I enjoyed my visit, of course we didn't see lots of the animals because of the time of year. Should imagine it gets very busy in summer, but it was very peaceful when we visited. I liked the fact they were concentrating on Scandinavian animals and the viewing was very good. The open-air museum was really interesting too and I'd like to see it in full-swing when they are doing more demonstrations.
Stockholm was great too, we'd like to see more of Scandinavia soon and in the mean time are having to settle for watching Wallander episodes!!!
Yes we got to warm up nicely in Skansen-Akvariet! I've put some of those pictures up too, I had to keep clearing my camera lens because of the snow and then it steamed up ha ha!
I think the Nordic zoo area is excellent - I like the walk-in owl aviary very much and most of the enclosures are simple but spacious. I'm not so keen on the Akvariet and tropical exhibits though, they feel a bit like a side-show add on to me and don't really compliment the other areas very well.
