I was headed to a conference in Saint Louis and had to make the most of the trip all the way there – so the weekend before the conference I headed to Omaha, Nebraska to check out the Henry Doorly Zoo and Aquarium as it comes up on just about every single ‘top zoo in the USA’ list! No pandas of course, but still plenty to see and enough to easily fill a whole day of animal watching^
Had a great Autumnal weekend in Vienna and had plenty of time to see the whole of Schöbrunn Zoo across the two days. It was a very popular spot with many tourists visiting, in fact for sure this is the zoo that I’ve seen the most tourists in. Had great weather which meant almost all the animals were outside – makes for a good visit. It’s a large zoo so I definitely would have struggled to see everything in one day as well as dedicating a solid amount of time to the pandas, I think two days was pretty perfect!
The Schönbrunn Zoo in Vienna, Austria was the first European zoo that I saw pandas in after my home zoo of Edinburgh way back in 2017 (when the last born cubs there were just tiny lil babies^). In 2018 the twins left Vienna for China, and in 2023 mama Yang Yang and her new partner Yuan Yuan (who I didn’t see) left for their return to China. Finally in April 2025, a brand new pair of pandas moved to Vienna! As soon as I heard the news, I booked myself a trip – welcome to Lan Yun and He Feng 🎉
With giving myself 2 days for panda viewing at Zoo Berlin, of course, there were some panda sleeping hours where I could go and see the rest of the animals – I’ve seen around the whole zoo a few times before on previous trips (this is my 5th time at the zoo!), so I didn’t take thorough pictures of the grounds or all the animals, but I think I had a pretty good viewing experience overall. Shortly before my visit baby capybara’s were born, they weren’t quite out exploring yet so I didn’t get to see them – but perhaps on my next visit they’ll still be little^
Highlights included: seeing the rhinos outside in their new space, watching the brown bears search for fruit and veg in their rather green pool (and having a blast while doing so), and discovering that there are actually two takins here because I’d only ever seen one before!
On my last trip to Berlin in May, I couldn’t resist buying an annual pass – for zoo only it was 63€, and with a visit costing 25€ (on the day of the visit), it really just made sense, so with this 2-day visit in September, my annual pass had already paid for itself after our 2-day visit in May! So, time for another ‘Pandas at Zoo Berlin‘ post – this is my 5th trip to the Zoo, and my second time seeing Leni and Lotti^ On the whole, nothing has hugely changed with the zoo since my last visit, apart from that you can now buy a Leni and Lotti souvenir 0€ note, so let’s just get into the photos:
