On my way home from Madrid in June 2023 I had several hours in Amsterdam, of course I hopped on a train into the city and spent the afternoon at ARTIS! It was a Friday afternoon (at the start of June, so not Summer holiday time yet), and while there were a couple of school groups, it was actually relatively quiet despite the great weather. It had been a few years since my last trip, most things were as I remembered but there seemed to be some new additions, or perhaps just things I hadn’t remembered seeing previously – there was a new lion habitat being built and it looked amazing, so I think I’ll need to visit again to see that with the lions now living there! Most of the animals were up and about and active, I definitely liked seeing the elephants and giraffes outside and interacting in their herds which I hadn’t seen so much when visiting in Winter. I would definitely recommend a weekday visit in the warmer months!

Back in the Winter of 2018/2019 I happened to be in Amsterdam on a couple of occasions and stopped off at ARTIS Zoo both times. ARTIS is a very nice city zoo, located right in the middle of Amsterdam, and is a great size for spending a few hours enjoying nature. I also find it a great year-round zoo and there were still plenty of animals to see out and about in the chilly Winter months. Today I’m sharing a small selection of the photos I took on these visits to ARTIS – I particularly liked seeing the camels (it’s been a while since we’ve had camels at Edinburgh Zoo for me to see regularly) and also the lemur walkthrough. And next time I’ll be sharing the pictures I took last Summer when I made another visit – look out for that!