Odense Zoo

Odense is the third largest city in Denmark, about 150,000 people, and they have a pretty big zoo with lots of different animals. But the most interesting part was the zoo set-up. You can get quite close to the animals, and if you really felt like it, you could stick your arm through the leapord bars. So - keep an eye on the kids.

You go from animal to animal, down dirt trails, bordered by oil lanterns and coal grills (to warm up your hands). To get a good look at the penguins you can climb up a rock wall, in a dark room. To see the sloth, you have to go into a cave, and oh boy does it stink (grandma and I both checked him out, Pete was just too afraid). The zoo is located in central Odense, so some lucky people have emu, or reindeer, or zebras in their back yard. Here are just a few things we saw, there was much much more, but you'll just have come see it for yourself.

See the camel. See the fence?

See the park (and Pete). See the camel. See any fence?

Oil lanterns.

Coal warmers.

The zebra pen...with someone's house behind.

Although the manatees were very cool, I'd have to say that my very favorite thing was the penguin exhibit. They were in an enclosed building. The ceiling was domed and painted to look like the sky. You didn't see the walls, it looked like rocky cliffs to the horizon. There was even snow. The light was angled, so it seemed like you were really at the north (or south) pole. Unlike como zoo where its just painted concrete, the pool the peguins were diving into was deep, dark, and had a rocky bottom. Through the underwater windows you could see that there was a strong current and they all just kept swimming around in it. They also had a small stream of water coming out of the rock wall so you could feel just how cold the water was. Too cool.

Here is a pile of someone's dinner.

This is a tapir - a pig-like animal with a really short ardvark-like snout. Before visiting this pen, I saw one of these things outdoors. I thought I saw "spray" come out of his behind. Then I convinced myself it was just the flash of someone's camera. Guess not.