An excellent weekend, actually.
Zurich were excellent and generous hosts, and the organisation was very smooth.
Numbers were possibly down a little on previous years, with one or two stalwarts absent for various reasons; thus the collectors fair on Saturday morning was relatively low-key. Still a healthy turnout with a number of attendees who are either regular or occasional visitors to this site.
Zurich is obviously an outstanding zoo, although - on a wholly personal level - I don't particularly like it: not enough animals (my favourite part by far is the Exotarium, which is one of the more old fashioned elements of the zoo; Masaola, too, is clearly a wonderful place - especially when one has a superb view of the pitta-like ground rollers!).
Over the course of the weekend, several other zoos were also visited: Goldau was beautiful, and impressive, but had a few too many massive playgrounds and suchlike for me; Walter Zoo was a pleasing, small zoo; Plättli was as second-rate as had been suggested on this thread; the St Gallen Voliere is tiny, but worth seeing; Wildnispark Zurich was very worthy (but, truth be told, a little dull). Most enjoyable visit: Knie Kinderzoo, which is no Berlin, certainly, but has an undeniable charm (especially for anyone who played with a toy zoo as a child).
One other comment on Switzerland: blimey, it's eye-wateringly expensive!
A really enjoyable three days; now for Wroclaw in 2017.
