The Budapest zoo is walkable from our friend's apartment and of course kids and zoos go together like kids and candy so we decided it would be a good plan for our Wednesday. With the kids rising early on vacation (kak obuichna) we were at the entrance at opening time sharp, 9:00am. We figured we'd stay 2 hours or so, catch lunch somewhere, maybe play in the park a bit and try to get Alex a nap. Hahahahahaha.
This zoo is amazing. It's segmented into regions, so there's an Australia area, a Madagascar area, etc, etc. We ran into the petting zoo relatively early on. You climb a ladder to get over the fence where the very tame and friendly goats live. The kids were thrilled to pet them, as you can see. There's a sectioned off area where the goats can get away from people when it gets to be too much. Next to the goat area, but not for petting, is the guinea pig area. I have no earthly idea why we didn't get photos. Their outdoor space is a little mini village, with houses, cars, shops etc for them to run around and play in.
Another part Alex particularly liked was the animal hospital area, where we could see the sick/injured animals in their separate quarters. We were there so early the only human back there was the cleaner, but it looks like people can watch the vets take care of the animals.
The hippos live in a mosiac'd building (of course with access to outside too) and, as they are next to the elephants, there is a huge Ganesh at the entrance of the building.
Budapest really has its act together when it comes to playgrounds. The zoo had several places for kids to play, from the carved wooden insects to the ocean themed huge play area complete with a pirate ship (well, it has a gangplank), dolphins and a whale. There's even a zipline for older kids or kids whose parents hang on.
We loved the zoo so much we got Tshirts. We never get touristy stuff like that. And in the end we spent 6 hours there, only heading home because it was about to start raining.
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