Guten Tag Berlin! Mr. Zootycoon's German adventures 2017

Mr. Zootycoon

Mr. Zootycoon

Well-Known Member
10+ year member
Gutentag meine Zoofreunde! This year I will again embark on a zoo trip to germany, and this year, it will be all about the Berlin zoos! My last travel thread turned out as quite a disaster, but I hope this one won't.

The Berlin zoos are among the most beloved and most critised of all zoos discussed on Zoochat. After reading lots and lots of discussion about the zoos here, I finally decided to visit the two zoos highest on my must see list: Tierpark Berlin and Zoo Berlin, on my own. The whole trip will take 5 days, 6 if I include the warming up (visiting Burgers' Zoo one day prior to the Berlin trip) in July this year. The first day will probably be mostly traveling, but I'll squeeze in one zoo on our way toward Berlin (probably Magdeburg). Then, there well be 3 full days in either the Tierpark, the Zoo or the Zoo Aquarium. The morning and part of the afternoon of the 5th day will still be visiting one of the Berlin zoos (probably the Aquarium), after which we will travel home. The evenings are completely unplanned, so I'm open to suggestions.

A second (smaller) trip this year will go to a German birding spot: Zwillibrocker Venn, known for it's huge gull colonies and of course, flamingoes. There's a slim chance I'll be making to Walsrode again this summer, in that case the day at Zwillibrocker will be part of that trip. This and any other zoo trips planned this year in Germany will be discussed in this thread too.

Any tips on animals or enclosures in Berlin I shouldn't miss are of course welcome!
 
You have choiced the best time for your Berlin-Trip-problaby, the Giant pandas will be on Display, it is holiday time, summer and the zoo is full of tourits. So I guess the zoo will be overcrowded....:eek:
 
Thanks for accepting my correction.
If you have any time to spare and like parrots, you should book a tour at the ACTP. Spix's macaws, St. Vincent and St. Lucia parrots-oh my!

Before travelling to Berlin, be aware of three things:
- Berlin residents come in two flavours: likeable people. And rude, unfriendly and sometimes completely weird blockheads. Both might exercise "Berliner Schnauze" when talking to you.
- A former mayor of Berlin once declared that Berlin is "poor, but sexy". See for yourself...^^
- Berlin tends to object to "typically German" qualitities such as punctuality, functionality or reliability now and then. So don't be shocked by random chaos you wouldn't otherwisely associate with Germany.
 
Batto said:
If you have any time to spare and like parrots, you should book a tour at the ACTP. Spix's macaws, St. Vincent and St. Lucia parrots-oh my!
Click to expand...

And 4 species of birds of paradise ;)

Batto said:
- Berlin tends to object to "typically German" qualitities such as punctuality, functionality or reliability now and then. So don't be shocked by random chaos you wouldn't otherwisely associate with Germany.
Click to expand...

They do however take the German beer drinking culture extremely serious, don't be surprised if you see grandmothers emptying 0.5 litre cans of beer in the train at 8 am...
 
No, Brum - you're way too nice to be a "Berliner". ;)

That's not really a typically German "culture" @lintworm - just ask the Czech...;) List of countries by beer consumption per capita - Wikipedia

There's a great pizza place at Nollendorfplatz (Maestro Pizza). Just don't choke on the delicious square pizza slices when elderly gents sporting quite revealing leather chaps and whips stroll by in broad daylight :D As my Berlin friends tend to say: "Det is' Berlin".
 
you can find anything on Wikipedia these days. I am genuinely surprised how low Australia and especially New Zealand are on the beer-consumption list (and on the accompanying alcohol-consumption list).
 
lintworm said:
And 4 species of birds of paradise ;)



They do however take the German beer drinking culture extremely serious, don't be surprised if you see grandmothers emptying 0.5 litre cans of beer in the train at 8 am...
Click to expand...

Yeah, I can see that every day, and not only grandmothers in trains do so -what do think old people do at their homes in the retirement homes-there the beer flows in huge streams every night.

In Bavaria, kids grew up with beer.;) Thats typical german-because we don't have water here. So don't miss the beer fountains at Berlin Zoo!
 
Batto said:
Thanks for accepting my correction.
If you have any time to spare and like parrots, you should book a tour at the ACTP. Spix's macaws, St. Vincent and St. Lucia parrots-oh my!

Before travelling to Berlin, be aware of three things:
- Berlin residents come in two flavours: likeable people. And rude, unfriendly and sometimes completely weird blockheads. Both might exercise "Berliner Schnauze" when talking to you.
- A former mayor of Berlin once declared that Berlin is "poor, but sexy". See for yourself...^^
- Berlin tends to object to "typically German" qualitities such as punctuality, functionality or reliability now and then. So don't be shocked by random chaos you wouldn't otherwisely associate with Germany.
Click to expand...

I have indeed decided to book a tour at the ACTP (I didn't even know they gave tours), the spix' macaw (in lesser extend the lear's macaw too) being one the animals I always dreamed of seeing but never though I would even be able to. Thanks for the other advice too.

lintworm said:
They do however take the German beer drinking culture extremely serious, don't be surprised if you see grandmothers emptying 0.5 litre cans of beer in the train at 8 am...
Click to expand...

For some reason I'm not surprised ;)
Don't worry everyone, I'll make sure to discover that particular part of the Berlin culture on the trip.

Thanks for advice and comments everyone.
 
I loved Berlin (went at Easter), it may as well been a city in the UK.

For drinking, yep I saw people drinking bottles on the S-Bahn at 8am in the morning and it wasn't a homeless person (which often walk the trains asking for spare change I presume).

I did find you notice the difference in east and west Berlin.

Zoo Berlin a full day is plenty of time. Tierpark is doable in a full day but it will be hard on your feet.

Evenings there are plenty of different restaurants all well priced, in fact I found it cheap compared to UK. Enjoy.
 
I don't actually have any current plans that will get me near Berlin, but in case I do, how do you book a tour at ACTP? I've tried searching for it but I can't find anything.
 
@savethelephant not in Berlin at least. Said pastry, aka "Krapfen" in Austria and Southern Germany, is colloquially called "Pfannkuchen" (=pancake) in Berlin and East Germany. Only North and most of West Germany (and CH) call it "Berliner".
...
Yeah, Germans like to complicate things - even the naming of doughnuts/donuts. ^^
 
Yes, german people are strange-all day drunk, because we all start drinking beer in S-Bahn and trains early in the morning, and then we are to stupid to find the correct name for Donuts...Even our zoos are poor-too small"collections".

Damn, Donald Trump should be our President...
 
Chlidonias said:
you can find anything on Wikipedia these days. I am genuinely surprised how low Australia and especially New Zealand are on the beer-consumption list (and on the accompanying alcohol-consumption list).
Click to expand...

It's because our alcohol consumption is less widespread but more concentrated. My observation is that beer is more ubiquitous here - everybody seems to have a beer with lunch. What they don't do is go out on a Saturday night and down a dozen vodka shots. It's a much healthier relationship with booze here.
 
Chlidonias said:
you can find anything on Wikipedia these days. I am genuinely surprised how low Australia and especially New Zealand are on the beer-consumption list (and on the accompanying alcohol-consumption list).
Click to expand...

We beat the New Zealanders, that is all that really matters, surely.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top