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Vienna Zoo

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The center of Vienna is between the two large boulevards, the Ring and the Gürtel; beyond the Gürtel there are suburbs and garden cities. Though they can be reached by public transportation very comfortably, still we can consider a visit there to be a long walk. There are several sights also beyond the Gürtel that would not be missed. Such is for example the world famous Schönbrunn.

The castle and the park situated here compose one unit, and considering the baroque conception of the castle, they complement each another in many ways. Since the last decade of the life of Marie Therese the garden has been so to say unchanged and defines the characteristic looks of the garden in Schönbrunn.

The estate had been named "Kattenburg" since the 14th century. It was a land suitable for cultivating grapes, and also a mill functioned there. It attracted a multitude of tenants, but all this stopped when in 1569 emperor Maximilian II declared the area to be a royal property. he German-Roman emperor intended this area to be an ornamental place with animals, where he could enjoy his passion for collecting and hunting so characteristic of the Hapsburgs. Therefore the garden re-shaped by Maximilian II was not only for homeland beasts and birds but gave home to exotic birds and peacocks which cannot be missing from an imperial animal park. This idyllic state was stopped by the Hungarian armies who ruined this separated park in 1605. It was temporarily reconstructed, but emperor Matthias used it only for hunting. The legends say he found that "beautiful well" (Schönbrunn) in one of his huntings, which well gave the final name of the estate decades later.

The dream of emperor Maximilian II about the ornamental and animal park broke with the beginning of the rule of Marie Therese. The daughter of emperor Charles VI made an imperial court on this area, and the zoo park took only a fragment of the province. Members of the royal family ate their lunch in the pavillon grounded in 1752 here.

In our days this is the oldest zoo which has kept in its original state and has been working ever since, famous for its cages arranged in a shape of a ring.

It was the Schönbrunn Zoo where first in the world an elephant baby was born in a zoo park. Until that zoologists believed wild animals would not propagate in zoos. That's why the management of the zoo stresses an extra emphasis on that Schönbrunn should be "a zoo of happy animals".

Feeding of the animals is especially in interesting in the oldest zoo park in the world, for example the apes, whom we can see at 10 (late morning meal) and 14:30 (lunch). In the elephant house we can watch this thick-skinned animals from a direct proximity (perhaps we can see the elephant baby even having a bath). Near the classic elephant house and the cages of predatory animals we can see the farmers cottage made first of all for children, where children can fondle the animals. In the zoo such animals like river horses, lions, pavians, giraffes, wolves found home. It is worth to see also the original Tirol farmer house with its domestic animals.