BIOPARC Valencia
The weather in Valencia is so beautiful this time of year! We decided it would be fun to visit BIOPARC Valencia, at the western end of Turia Garden. Our kids are grown, so we hadn’t had a proper zoo visit in many years (not counting brief brushes with New York’s Central Park Zoo and Chicago’s Lincoln Park Zoo, which we had encountered on our walks). And BIOPARC has a good reputation for its “zooimmersion” concept and conservation efforts.
We entered BIOPARC and walked across a white bridge that I had admired from afar on my walks. Signs informed us we were now in Africa. And for the next three hours, we felt as if we really were in Africa, on a walking safari. The animals roamed freely in large spaces that recreated their natural habitats - the savannah, the wetlands, the rainforest. Pathways wound gently around the habitats so that we could view the same spaces from different vantage points. Several times, I rounded a corner and was surprised to find myself much closer to the animals I had just watched from afar. It was zooimmersion at its finest.
It was midday, sunny but not hot. A few animals were napping, but most were moving around their habitats and delighting visitors with their antics. The giraffes craned their necks and did strange things with their weirdly long tongues. Elephants gave themselves mud baths. Gorillas sprawled carelessly against the glass, tantalizingly close but thankfully unable to see us. A baby chimpanzee frolicked and tumbled, while the children around us laughed and cheered. I felt like a kid, too. Kudos to BIOPARC - we had a wonderful time!
