Sun 16.Aug.2015
Bratislava, Slovakia
Seems like at least a week since I promised that this page was on the way.
A poster here in Bratislava with a panda urged me to visit "Europe's finest zoo"
in Vienna. Well, why not?
Curiously, most of the good photos I got were of bird creatures.
The zoo is on the grounds of Schönbrunn,
the old Imperial summer palace,
near the imperial greenhouse (Palmenhaus - Palm House!),
which may show up in a later post.
Open year round
Like much else in Vienna, the zoo is far from cheap, but very classy.
I never got the name of this bird.
If you know, feel free to tell me.
A kids play area, in the style of Gaudí.
I don't know whether he himself was involved in it.
For as close as you could get to the penguins, I certainly had a hard time
getting decent shot of them.
A funny old bird is the pelican.
His bill holds more than his belly can.
He can take in his beak
Enough food for a week,
Though I'm darned if I see how the helican.
-- Ogden Nash
Another bird whose name I don't know. I should just call them all Fred.
A reflecting pelican
A pair of cormorants.
We are outside the zoo now, in the vast palace gardens.
View from inside / underneath a tree of a size and shape to be a big tent.
A cylindrically sculpted bush.
It looked like a neat image at the time.
From the entrance to the Metro station, you can look about 50m down the
track to what used to be the emperor's own personal station on what was
then just a tram.
His majesty is reported to have used it twice.