I’ve already posted about seeing the pandas and sleeping in the resort at Pairi Daiza in 2022, but time for the rest of the park pictures! We spent 1 night and 2 full days here and I think we really made the most of it (despite primarily being there for the pandas), although another day would have been perfect to revisit some of our favourite animals. At the time of our visit, the new entrance was still being constructed – this is now open and there have been some changes in the past 1.5 years so some things may look a little different and there may be different animals in some areas now. I have also posted previously about my first visit to Pairi Daiza back in 2017 – seriously, where did the time go?!
Continue Reading “Pairi Daiza, Belgium 2022”Pairi Daiza, Belgium 2022
Sleep with the Polar Bears at Pairi Daiza
Pairi Daiza in Belgium has had hotels open in the heart of the zoo for several years now – it started with The Paddling Bear hotel, and has now extended to rooms in both the Last Frontier and Land of the Cold areas. You can lie in bed or lounge on the sofa overlooking tigers, walruses, penguins, bears and more! We opted to choose a polar bear room – here there are 3 levels of options, an ‘eye-to-eye’ view which has water around 2/3rds of the way up the window so you get great views when the bears are swimming, a ‘from above’ view which is just about in the eyeline of the polar bears on the ground, and a ‘birds eye’ view another floor up giving you a great sweeping view across the whole habitat. I was very happy with our ‘from above’ view over the lovely polar bears!
Continue Reading “Sleep with the Polar Bears at Pairi Daiza”Last time seeing Yang Guang and Tian Tian at Edinburgh Zoo (December 2023)
One last time posting about Yang Guang and Tian Tian living in Edinburgh Zoo – on the 30th of November 2023, the pandas had their last guaranteed on show day to the public (photos included in the November posts^). The zoo had announced that after this date that the pandas would be only visible if they were in the outdoor enclosure, so I made a trip on the 3rd of December 2023 with a friend on the off chance that we might see the pandas outside – lucky we did as not only did we see the pandas outside but on the 4th of December they left Edinburgh to head back to China. I got quite a few pictures, but ending with just the ‘best’ one – sure it’s not amazing quality and it’s through multiple fences, but I ended on a high getting a photo of both Yang Guang and Tian Tian ‘together’ outside which I’ve never seen before so I count myself incredibly lucky to have been there at the right moment. Yang Guang is the closer panda with his back to me and Tian Tian is standing on the rocks looking towards her panda pal of the last 12 years. I’m very hopeful that I’ll be back in China this year and will be able to see both my favourite pandas again 🤍🖤
ZooParc de Beauval, France 2022
I already posted about visiting the pandas at ZooParc de Beauval back in March 2022 (where did the time go, I can’t believe it’s been 2 years since this trip!), I’m now finally getting around to posting about the rest of the zoo. It is a huge site with so many different animals to see – and I took so many photos it was hard to narrow them all down. Because of the size, this is definitely not a 1-day type of place – with the distance it was for me to get there, we stayed on-property in one of the Zoo’s hotels for 3 nights, so we ended up with 2 full days and 2-3 hours in the afternoon that we arrived. This was a good amount of time to see everything on a first visit, but could easily go back for that same length of time again. Going in March was pretty good because the Zoo was never particularly busy, or because of the large size, people were generally very spread out so you could always get a good view of all the animals. The Zoo is conveniently split into 3 areas, it’s very possible to walk all the way across the zoo, however they have installed a very convenient telecabine which you can take between the north entrance by the lions in the Zone Nord all the way over to the opposite site of the zoo in Zone Sud by the elephants – this had shorter operation times than the opening of the zoo, so getting there at opening time means a walk all the way over to Zone Sud to get to the pandas, and if you miss the last one back, a walk all the way back at the end of the day. Some of the cabins even had a glass floor so you could really see everything all around, I’m not sure I liked this so much seeing the ground go past beneath me! This was a great way to get a good view of the whole zoo plus you were directly over some of the animals. The Zoo also has plenty of play areas for kids, and plenty of restaurants and food/drink kiosks – which ones are open just depend on the time of year, so on our visit most of the small kiosks were closed.
