The local animal park was founded in 1752 by Emperor Francis Stephen of Lorraine, husband of Maria Theresa, in order to invite his noble guests, and simply to show them what his summer residence Schönbrunn could offer. Since those times a lot of time have passed so today’s zoo elegantly combines baroque menagerie with the most modern pavilions for animals. From historical events could be mentioned that in 1906 the first elephant in captivity was born here, which was a rarity as it was previously considered impossible.

The staff in Zoo Schönbrunn do their best to get customer satisfied and Zoo offers even night tours with a guide and a night vision device. Such kind of visit you have to book in advance and the maximum number of participants is 20 persons.

The Day Pass costs €14 for adult, but there are discounts for children, family, and Year Pass.

Zoo Schönbrunn is one of the best and most modern in the world. Visiting it either in day or night means you take a lot of experiences, impressions and knowledge.

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The animals here live in very nice pavilions and it is really amazing how much space they have available. The pride of the ZOO is a newly built Indonesian jungle pavilion, tiger and predators pavilions, and a house of African gorillas. Very interesting exhibitions are also an aviary for birds of prey, pavilion of big mammals, the giraffe area and polar bears pavilion.

But the Prague Zoo is probably mainly proud of a unique breed of rare Przewalski’s horses. The main task of zoos is to protect species and help in their reproduction and Prague Zoo is involved in the reintroduction of Przewalski’s horses. Przewalski’s Horse lives in the wild only in Mongolia, and even there it was last observed during the scientific expedition sometimes in the 50′s of the 20th century.

Natural evolution

During its existence, the Prague Zoo has undergone many changes and has made great development. In its opening in 1931 Zoo had about 300 animals and was spread on an area of ​​only 8 hectares. It gradually expanded, but still retains the quality.

Prague Zoo was very affected by floods in 2002. A large number of animals were killed and many buildings were damaged. After the floods, ZOO has undergone extensive refurbishment and now it is a very modern and popular zoo. The symbol of those floods is a sea lion Guston, who in 2002 got into the river and was caught up in Dresden, Germany. Unfortunately the seal lion died on its way back to ZOO.

During the reconstruction of the Prague Zoo, several interesting and unique buildings were built here. These include also the most expensive pavilion in the history of the Czech Zoos – Indonesian jungle. The pavilion was opened in 2004 instead of 50-year-old monkey pavilion. The pavilion has an elliptical shape of the greenhouse, which creates the impression of the jungle. Inside, visitors can see the orangutans, gibbons or lizards.

Other interesting sites in the Prague Zoo include complex of monkey islands, children’s zoo (where kids may even feed the animals), African pavilion and lots of other new pavilions. Prague Zoo is growing rapidly, so in the near future we can look forward to another interesting enclosures and pavilions.

How to get there

Prague Zoo is one of the places where you can spend pleasant moments with your children. You can come here by your own car, or you can take a bus from the subway station Holešovice. A pleasant experience can be already a trip to the zoo by a ferry across Prague.

For more information, visit official website of Prague Zoo.

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