Czech Beer, Hot Dogs and Feeding Time at the Zoo

Hi Everyone, I hope you all had a relaxing and sunny weekend. I don't have a recipe for you today, ( I will in the coming day or so), instead I wanted to share some photos from our trip to the Zoo. Besides the adorable animals I have also snapped photos of what we ate at the Zoo. This was our first trip to Prague Zoo and it was a fun day with perfectly mild weather to enjoy the fresh air, animals and nature. Prague Zoo was built in 1931 and it has survived a World War and the worst floods in Prague history. The floods happened in 2002 and much of the old city and lower lying areas of Prague as well as large sections of the Zoo were completely underwater. We were not here when the floods happened but all these years later you will find reminders of the damage and how high the water levels rose to. These floods actually affected much of the Czech Republic as well as the countries in this region causing deaths and billions of Euros in damages. Some of the saddest photos you see of the floods are of the rescuing of the animals from the Prague Zoo. Sadly not all of the animals made it out alive, a few animals had to be put down because they were trapped and there was no way of rescuing them and sadly some drowned. After the floods many people donated money to the Zoo and the Zoo has been steadily if not completely back to normal. In fact the Prague Zoo was voted as the 7th best Zoo in the world by Forbes magazine. We both enjoyed the walk through the small but friendly, interesting and very natural setting of the Zoo. It feels like you are in a big Forest preserve and the animals are housed in very natural enclosures. In some we were able to get so close to the animals that it was almost uncomfortable, well for little 'ol me it was. I took the photos with a regular point and shoot camera without any fancy zoom , so you can see how close we were able to get to the animals.

The entrance to the Zoo

Oops should have learned the animal names in Czech, good thing there are drawings of the animals next to the name.

Wait, first it's Pivo time (Beer in Czech, pronounced pee-vo) Mmm Krusovice is my 2nd favorite Czech beer.

Sea Lion entertaining the silly humans with it's awesome tricks.

An Elk??? I should have paid better attention

An adorable Goat,from the children's petting zoo,soaking up the sun.

Canis lupus familiaris or man's best friend. He belonged to a Zoo keeper and was resting in the children's petting zoo.

The chair lift, the entrance building was completely underwater - that's high!

Nap time for this adorable Gorilla

The baby Gorilla was born this April , napping with her Mommy.

Sweet dreams! Isn't he adorable ?

Perfect timing, feeding time at the big cats enclosure.

We were able to get up so close to the glass. What an exhilarating experience it is to see this magnificent creature eating so close to us.

I wonder if he wishes he had thumbs to grab his bone and hold it still? just kidding.

The King and Queen of the Zoo. I guess they weren't hungry yet because their food was inside and they were still walking outside.

Lunch Time!! This is a parek v rohlik (frankfurter in a roll) or a Czech hot dog. A Czech roll is hollowed out and you can have either ketchup or mustard or neither added to the inside of the roll then the hot dog is placed inside. It was a perfect lunch with a refreshing ice cold beer. Two hot dogs and two 1/2 liter beers for only 90KC that's $4.60 or €3.60, what a deal!

Get in my mouth , drobro chut! (bon appetite) yum, yum and brrrrppp.......excuse me..... it's the beer..... no really!

Let's burn off that beer and walk to see the polar bears, so cuddly.

What happened next I can't show you, because I was too scared to take any photos. The Bat house -eek! I am afraid of them and what happens to me as I'm holding on to my husband for dear life? Yup I got pooped on by a bat on my shoulder, arrrgh ! Then the one bat smacked my husband's forehead with it's wing. Can we go please... so I can go back to acting like a 30 year old instead of a 3 year old?

Ah that's better, the Indonesian Jungle pavilion. It was very hot and humid with a lot of jungle recordings and monkeys everywhere. There are so cute, aren't they?

Sleepy Lemur, the enclosures is open and they are free to walk around and past the visitors. Just don't touch them please, but look how close you can get - right next to them.

Czech Gelati, yup the same Italian ice cream treat is available all over Prague. Make mine a pistachio flavor, wow only 12KC or $.62 or € .48. (Please pay no attention to my stumpy thumb)

LOL! What a Mexican restaurant in the Zoo? Yes, we saw this cafe as we were leaving and they offered some well know Mexican fast food dishes. No we didn't eat there, maybe next time or maybe we'll stick with yummy Czech fast foods.