The Blijdorp Zoo, part 2

Last Tuesday I wrote about the history of the park, but with about 1.6 million visitors a year the park is still thriving. Today we’ll see what you can do in the park!

From 1988 onwards the park has a ‘master plan’ in which they decided to reconstruct the park, and divide it into continents. By doing this they can place all the animals per continent where they originate from and make the residences as realistic as possible. Until today they’re building an adding to the park.

Oceanium

The Oceanium opened in 2001 and added 11 hectares to the whole park. The enormous aquarium offers a wide selection of different sea creatures. You can walk through a tunnel surrounded by water and sea life. No need of beautiful weather to visit the zoo anymore! With this large range of sea life you can stay indoors all day!

Extra fun for the kids!

The park put in extra effort in the playground (the Oewanja Kidsjungle). The parents can sit next to the playground enjoying a drink, while still keeping an eye on their little ones. This is not the only thing that the park has to offer to kids! They can play in the public lab, climb through the belly  of a whale, jump over floes, climb into a giant egg and much much more!

Birds, birds, birds!

The park has a huge amount of different birds. There are multiple aviaries. There is one for meadow and migration birds, of which is one part dedicated to the birds that also live in the Netherlands, and the other part is dedicated to the south-European birds. Next to that there is also a aviary with different types of vultures.

To make it even better, there is a daily show called the “free flight performance”, they trained more than 20 different species for this.

Amazonica

The last development of the park is the gigantic butterfly house, the Amazonica, which opened in 2013 (back then the largest butterfly house of Europe). As visitor you can walk freely between the beautiful plants while the most beautiful butterflies fly around you. In the middle of the butterfly house they built a basin where they house different types of reptiles and fish that also originate from the amazon.

So who’s visiting the zoo this weekend?

Would you like to live in Blijdorp Rotterdam? Take a look at our website, DomicaRotterdam, for more information.

 

The Blijdorp Zoo

A trip to the zoo is one of the nicest things to do with the whole family and The Blijdorp Zoo makes it an extra special day! The zoo is one of the first Dutch zoos, and thus, has an elaborate history.

The very beginning of the zoo can be traced back to 1855, when a garden for water birds and pheasants located at the Kruiskade opened. Due to its success it expanded into a zoo, the Rotterdamsche Zoo opened in 1857. Back in the day it was open for members of the association ‘Vereniging Rotterdamsche Diergaarde’, which were only the richer citizens.

Unfortunately there were some financial problems in the beginning in the 20^th century. That’s why the zoo decided to move, and for 1 gilder they bought 13 acers of land in the district Blijdorp in 1938. With the help of the Associantion Vokskracht they were able to build the new zoo and it opened for everybody.

In 1940 the zoo got hit by bombardments, two days before the large bombardment of the city. A few animals were killed, and a few were able to escape. According to popular stories a zebra escaped into the shopping streets and a couple of sea lions were swimming in the canals of the city.

The new zoo is designed by Sybold van Ravesteyn, he designed it in such manner that he used canals and walls instead of fences. The heated indoor spaces and the large outdoor spaces were phenomenal back then, and so was Blijdorp one of the first zoo’s using this system. Blijdorp Zoo is also one of the few zoo’s that are designed by one architect. It’s because of that that the zoo is proclaimed as national monument in 2004.

On the 9^th of December 1940 the zoo opened its new doors for the public.

Would you like to know what the zoo offers nowadays? Check our blog coming Thursday!

Would you like to live in Blijdorp Rotterdam? You can! Check Domica Rotterdam for more details!