I recently finished reading the novel, "The Zookeeper's Wife". The setting was Warsaw, Poland during WWII and is based on a real couple (if you guessed the zookeeper and his wife, you're correct!) who protected over 300 Jewish people in the zoo during the German occupation. I was ready to take a trip to the zoo and walk the grounds of this great true story!
Our Saturday began with rain, but we ventured out on the streets of Warsaw and headed towards the zoo...we rode the Metro, a tram and then walked...
Me and Claire (a co-worker of Mark's working here from Scotland). To say "zoo" in Polish, say the word "saw" but put a "z" in place of the "s".
This zoo is absolutely beautiful....like an enormous green, lush park! We walked for 3-4 hours and saw most parts of this beautiful site in Warsaw.
Our biggest challenge was being able to understand what we were seeing and where the animals were located. We saw a few of these signs throughout the zoo...would you believe the graphics are all stickers?! And the words...all in Polish!
I thought for sure we would be seeing a "Panda" after seeing #1 above....no...not at this zoo...#1 above stands for education, development and management of the zoo. You might be able to figure out #3 and #19...
As we walked the zoo, we all felt that we could be anywhere in any city at a zoo...until we saw the signs and heard people talking around us!
People here respond to the wonder of these beautiful animals with "oohs, aahs" and laughter just like in the U.S.
We were impressed with the large enclosures for most of the animals...these exhibits would not have been here during WWII but just walking the grounds made me appreciate the
story I read even more.
The building in the background was being renovated...who knows maybe this building was here during WWII?
We found this interesting European sculpture that has nothing to do with zoos...but we thought it was fun to stand by and get a picture.
We were hungry after our trip to the zoo...we walked across the street to the Praski Park and found a place selling hamburgers. These hamburgers were huge and Mark was impressed that I ate the whole thing...I was hungry!
We exited the zoo from the front entrance and practically circled the entire zoo before finding our tram stop...this was the "never ending" path we walked on .
We had a great afternoon visiting a fabulous zoo!
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