Pandas, penguins, sharks and lions are all within a drive of the city. Several picks are indoors, so they work in rain or cold. Here's what we checked, from the zoo in Casa de Campo to a drive-through safari.
Animals from five continents share the zoo, including giant pandas, koalas, Sumatran elephants and white rhinos. The glass-pyramid aquarium, Spain's first tropical marine aquarium when it opened in 1995, holds about 330 species, two 18-meter walk-through tunnels and a shark tank. Sea lions Tau, Carlota and Saba star in a short daily demo, and a small train loops past the pandas, meerkats and lemurs.
Faunia recreates habitats from around the world, several of them indoors. In Los Polos, more than a hundred penguins from six species swim and nest in a hall kept near freezing. La Jungla is a humid Amazon rainforest where a tropical storm breaks every hour and manatees swim through a tunnel at its entrance. Outside are a farm with dwarf goats and a canyon of 18 life-size dinosaur replicas.
Safari Madrid is a drive-through wildlife park near Aldea del Fresno. Families drive their own car along a route where giraffes, zebras, rhinos, elephants, bison and lions roam around the vehicles, then park and walk the rest: a petting corner, a reptile house, a crocodile grotto, a mini zoo and the bird of prey show, the first free-flight one in Spain when it began in 1978.
A 6,000-square-meter aquarium on the first floor of the Madrid Xanadú mall, with 10,000 animals across 20 marine habitats. The open-ocean hall is a domed walkway where blacktip and gray reef sharks, rays, and a loggerhead turtle swim around you. The polar zone has a column of snow kids can touch, and the Passport game handed out at the desk ends with a medal.
Pandas, penguins, sharks and lions are all within a drive of the city. Several picks are indoors, so they work in rain or cold. Here's what we checked, from the zoo in Casa de Campo to a drive-through safari.
Animals from five continents share the zoo, including giant pandas, koalas, Sumatran elephants and white rhinos. The glass-pyramid aquarium, Spain's first tropical marine aquarium when it opened in 1995, holds about 330 species, two 18-meter walk-through tunnels and a shark tank. Sea lions Tau, Carlota and Saba star in a short daily demo, and a small train loops past the pandas, meerkats and lemurs.
Faunia recreates habitats from around the world, several of them indoors. In Los Polos, more than a hundred penguins from six species swim and nest in a hall kept near freezing. La Jungla is a humid Amazon rainforest where a tropical storm breaks every hour and manatees swim through a tunnel at its entrance. Outside are a farm with dwarf goats and a canyon of 18 life-size dinosaur replicas.
Safari Madrid is a drive-through wildlife park near Aldea del Fresno. Families drive their own car along a route where giraffes, zebras, rhinos, elephants, bison and lions roam around the vehicles, then park and walk the rest: a petting corner, a reptile house, a crocodile grotto, a mini zoo and the bird of prey show, the first free-flight one in Spain when it began in 1978.
A 6,000-square-meter aquarium on the first floor of the Madrid Xanadú mall, with 10,000 animals across 20 marine habitats. The open-ocean hall is a domed walkway where blacktip and gray reef sharks, rays, and a loggerhead turtle swim around you. The polar zone has a column of snow kids can touch, and the Passport game handed out at the desk ends with a medal.
