Night Zoo / Nacht Zoo

During the month of August, the Salzburg Zoo stays open late on Friday and Saturday nights for "Nacht Zoo" and is open until 11:00pm. Since we're still a little off our regular sleep schedule, and are hoping that Nikolas might once again sleep through the night if completely exhausted, we thought we would head out to the zoo and check it out.


What a great zoo. Actually in the town of Anif, the zoo is nestled against a cliff side and across the field from the Untersberg mountain. Fabulous views wherever you turn! It was a very 'wild' zoo, with enclosures that were so natural - but really natural - not man-made-pretend-natural. It was nice because it was small enough to see virtually everything in only a couple hours, but still had a good selection of animals.


The idea behind Nacht Zoo is that the animals come out in the evening because it is cooler, and the animals certainly were out! Nikolas loved every minute of it, flitting from one enclosure to the next saying, "I want to see more amimals!"


The zoo was also very kid (and dog) friendly, with children's play areas (and dog water dishes) tucked away here and there. At the end we wound up at the petting zoo which, along with a walking entrance, had a slide entrance where Nikolas was too busy running a circuit though the petting area, up the hill, and back down the slide, to pay any attention to the farm animals.

We made it home just before it started to pour, and we felt sorry for all those people who had been in line to get in when we left!