The cost of getting into the various Spanish zoos is quite extraordinary - I´m just back from Faunia, in Madrid, where there is a rather ambitious headline figure of €25 for an adult entry - and then an additional charge of 60 c for the map (just a leaflet, nothing fancy). This last charge left me feeling rather grumpy actually; it´s a bit like the parking costs at Whipsnade, discussed at length elsewhere. Again, not many people there - or rather, the people who were there tended to be young children in big ´summer club´groups. Not a large number of independent visitors. I was able to sit in the penguin house and listen to half of an Emmylou Harris album on my ipod before anyone came in.
And why was I listening to my ipod? Because, amongst the many good things that characterise Spanish zoos, one very bad thing is the insistence on piping music and background sounds through hidden speakers. At Valencia zoo these are mainly ´wildlife´noises; at both Madrid collections it was awful muzak, punctuated, fairly frequently, by such delights as the theme tune from Jurassic Park, or (and this is what drives a man to country music to block it out) endless replays of Tight Fit´s early 80s hit, "The Lion Sleeps Tonight" ("a wimoweh, a wimoweh" and so on...). I still haven´t quite recovered from having Shakira at ear-splitting volume in the Valencia Aquarium.
Keeper: yes, you are right of course. It´s no coincidence that there are few zoos in southern Europe - and that those that do exist are, perhaps, targetted at tourists as much as locals. I can´t help but feel that if Valencia Zoo were in, say, Brighton, it would be pulling in visitors by the thousand. Mind you, if Madrid Zoo were in the UK, it would have protestors camped outside its gates, angry at the bear and ape housing (and the presence of dolphins too, of course).
Snow Leopard: no, I don´t think I will write a full review of the various zoos I´ve seen for Zoochat, but I will chip in comments (as here). Although I fail miserably to do so, I try not to put too much ópinion´stuff on here, and stick instead to facts. Why? Too many people out for an argument, or, possibly, who seem to be out for an argument because of the (unintentional) tone of what they say - or who see others as being out for an argument because of misreading the tone of what they have said.
But, I´d say as a headline that I found all four Spanish collections fascinating for very different reasons, but that I wouldn´t rush back to see them again - while I would rush back to most good German, Dutch or Czech zoos. There are different zoos for different people, and a Valencia just isn´t for me - very good though it is at doing what it does.
