For kids who would trade any playground for a hippo, a horse or a dinosaur, these are the outings we plan around. Some sit inside the city, from hippos swimming past the glass to a blue whale skeleton. Others take about an hour by car, with life-size dinosaurs and a second zoo along the A4. Here's what we checked, from Wrocław Zoo to JuraPark Krasiejów.
Poland's oldest zoo covers 32 hectares by Centennial Hall and keeps more than 12,000 animals from over 1,100 species. The headline is the Afrykarium, an indoor oceanarium given over to African wildlife: sharks and rays, Nile crocodiles, hippos, manatees and penguins.
Elsewhere are the Madagascar pavilion, a terrarium and a children's zoo, and a visit mixes indoor halls with outdoor paths.
A boardwalk trail winds past life-size dinosaur models, and the Paleontology Pavilion shows a dinosaur excavation and its finds. Kids also get a prehistoric oceanarium, the Time Tunnel through billions of years of the universe, a cinema, the Science and Human Evolution Park, playgrounds and a beach with lifeguards.
The covered halls keep a rainy day going. The trail and beach need decent weather.
Opole Zoo covers about 19 hectares of Bolko Island on the Oder, with animals grouped by continent. Kids can watch California sea lions, gorillas, Angolan lions, giraffes, rhinos and red pandas, see ring-tailed lemurs on their own islands, and visit an amphibian pavilion and a stingray pool.
Between enclosures, the Zoolandia rope village has nets, hanging bridges and a short zip line among the trees.
Zielona Dolina is a working family farm in Krzeptów, just west of Wrocław, running since 2000. Visits are booked: school and preschool trips, kids' birthday parties, and summer day camps.
Kids feed goats and sheep, milk Łatka (a lifelike model goat), taste goat's milk, plant beans to take home, and play on a large playground. Covered shelters host picnics, bonfires and grills.
Partynice is a working horse racing track that doubles as a big green park. A 3.5 km walking and running path loops the grounds, 2.5 km of it around the racetrack, and horses rest out in the paddocks every day.
Younger kids head for the Konikowo playground, older ones for the rope park next door with five routes graded by age. On race days, flat and jump races thunder past the stands.
Founded in 1814, this university museum fills its halls with mounted animals, skeletons, insects and plants. The centerpiece is a 14.6-meter blue whale skeleton, the only one in Poland. Kids can also find a giant deer skeleton, a Tasmanian tiger and an aurochs skull.
Four permanent exhibitions cover the animal world, the plant world, vertebrate skeletons, and insects and people.
For kids who would trade any playground for a hippo, a horse or a dinosaur, these are the outings we plan around. Some sit inside the city, from hippos swimming past the glass to a blue whale skeleton. Others take about an hour by car, with life-size dinosaurs and a second zoo along the A4. Here's what we checked, from Wrocław Zoo to JuraPark Krasiejów.
Poland's oldest zoo covers 32 hectares by Centennial Hall and keeps more than 12,000 animals from over 1,100 species. The headline is the Afrykarium, an indoor oceanarium given over to African wildlife: sharks and rays, Nile crocodiles, hippos, manatees and penguins.
Elsewhere are the Madagascar pavilion, a terrarium and a children's zoo, and a visit mixes indoor halls with outdoor paths.
A boardwalk trail winds past life-size dinosaur models, and the Paleontology Pavilion shows a dinosaur excavation and its finds. Kids also get a prehistoric oceanarium, the Time Tunnel through billions of years of the universe, a cinema, the Science and Human Evolution Park, playgrounds and a beach with lifeguards.
The covered halls keep a rainy day going. The trail and beach need decent weather.
Opole Zoo covers about 19 hectares of Bolko Island on the Oder, with animals grouped by continent. Kids can watch California sea lions, gorillas, Angolan lions, giraffes, rhinos and red pandas, see ring-tailed lemurs on their own islands, and visit an amphibian pavilion and a stingray pool.
Between enclosures, the Zoolandia rope village has nets, hanging bridges and a short zip line among the trees.
Zielona Dolina is a working family farm in Krzeptów, just west of Wrocław, running since 2000. Visits are booked: school and preschool trips, kids' birthday parties, and summer day camps.
Kids feed goats and sheep, milk Łatka (a lifelike model goat), taste goat's milk, plant beans to take home, and play on a large playground. Covered shelters host picnics, bonfires and grills.
Partynice is a working horse racing track that doubles as a big green park. A 3.5 km walking and running path loops the grounds, 2.5 km of it around the racetrack, and horses rest out in the paddocks every day.
Younger kids head for the Konikowo playground, older ones for the rope park next door with five routes graded by age. On race days, flat and jump races thunder past the stands.
Founded in 1814, this university museum fills its halls with mounted animals, skeletons, insects and plants. The centerpiece is a 14.6-meter blue whale skeleton, the only one in Poland. Kids can also find a giant deer skeleton, a Tasmanian tiger and an aurochs skull.
Four permanent exhibitions cover the animal world, the plant world, vertebrate skeletons, and insects and people.
