(C) Daily Kos
This story was originally published by Daily Kos and is unaltered.
. . . . . . . . . .



Street Prophets Friday: The Warsaw Zoo (photo diary/open thread) [1]

['This Content Is Not Subject To Review Daily Kos Staff Prior To Publication.']

Date: 2025-06-27

Greetings and welcome to another fuzzily and wildly open thread. As usual when your host is ol' Marko, the borders are open, the comment section is up and open for anything.

For my part, kicking things off this week, I've got some of the photos I took on that bright and lovely Wednesday in Warsaw after I met up with Mrs the Werelynx after her conference held at the National Stadium had finished.

Monday we'd arrived and spent the day being sociable and I was welcomed and allowed to tag along on a few events planned by the conference organizers. Tuesday I ran around Warsaw on my own, did a sketch in the park of the Palace of Culture and Science and attended an evening-long concert that was part of the elimination rounds of a contest of performances of the piano works of Chopin. Wednesday morning I did some more sketching, this time it was of the statue of a statue personifying Medicine, and then quite a bit of wandering, exploring until it was time to meet up with Mrs the Werelynx as the conference ended.

A local Corvid takes a bath in one of the canals

Because we were on the east bank of the river, we walked back the route I'd come a ways before seeking out the entrance to the Warsaw Zoo. Definitely showing signs of financial struggle, but still quite beautiful as far as zoological parks go.

We ended up finding an entrance just next to the great apes house and enclosures.

We were long overdue for a snack, so we stopped for ice cream outside the closed elephant exhibit.

One of the locals stopped by, hoping for a taste.

Then it was off to see who else was out and about. We struck out with the giraffes. None of them were anywhere to be seen. And no rhinos. Both enclosures seemed to be closed indefinitely. But the reptile house held quite a few new faces.

Siamese Crocodile

Lion perched atop the skylight to his home

There were a few uncomfortably large insects in one area

Had to take a photo of these beauties as my local zoo has been a key partner in the efforts to reintroduce them to the wild. In fact, the longest, uninterrupted breeding program of the Przewalski Horse is in that zoo, the Prague Zoo.

Hrmph, not a fan of the new formatting on dKos— all my horizontal pics come out so tiny these days. Trust me, there's a Gray Seal on one of the gray rocks back there.

Waitaminnit— these aren't polar bears.

Kinda a rough looking space with plywood nesting boxes for the penguins. But where were the polar bears?

Ah, their last two polar bears were moved to the Prague Zoo last year! There's currently a rather large polar bear and seal exhibit space (not together! for heaven's sake, what were you thinking?) under construction in Prague.

If there had been some money invested in the Warsaw Zoo lately, it was probably in the newly renovated Aquarium.

The Ring-tailed Lemurs seemed pretty happy too.

There was a spot hidden in the middle of the zoo that Mrs the Werelynx and I both wanted to see.

The "Crazy Star" Villa, home of the Żabiński family during World War Two.

Can you zoom in on that one and read it? Why's it so tiny … oh well, much of this info is in the link in the description of the previous photo.

Jan Żabiński, Director of the Zoo and Warsaw Parks Commissioner during WW II and his wife and fellow zookeeper Antonina along with copies of several of the books they wrote and other mementos including a typewriter are part of an exhibit on this memorial bench outside the villa.

The exit to an escape tunnel from the villa.

A peek down the ladder into the tunnel which was instrumental in sheltering over three hundred Jews during the Nazi occupation of Warsaw.

Unfortunately we didn't make it to the far end of the zoo where I've since learned that we would have had a good chance of seeing some hippos in a relatively new exhibit space. It was getting to be dinner time and the the zoo concessions seemed to all be packing up. We left the zoo and set off back to the hotel, keeping an eye out for a promissing spot for some traditional Polish food.

Of course, we didn't pass up on a chance to skip the roads for the cool shade of a park's pathways.

I got to show Mrs the Werelynx the beautiful, red pedestrian and cyclist bridge that our host, Ewa had pointed out to us from the other bank on Monday. We crossed over it, enjoying the views and made our way downtown.

Success! Mrs the Werelynx had a sort of a Polish Goulash with potato pancakes, we shared a bowl of fried Pierogi with sour cream and what did I get? I'll give you a hint ...

Broad avenues lined with restaurants and shops, we were spoiled for choice.

I think we made the right choice by going to the Polish restaurant without a dancing Pierogi out front.

Thanks for stopping by.

This is an open thread.

[END]
---
[1] Url: https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2025/6/27/2330438/-Street-Prophets-Friday-The-Warsaw-Zoo-photo-diary-open-thread?pm_campaign=front_page&pm_source=more_community&pm_medium=web

Published and (C) by Daily Kos
Content appears here under this condition or license: Site content may be used for any purpose without permission unless otherwise specified.

via Magical.Fish Gopher News Feeds:
gopher://magical.fish/1/feeds/news/dailykos/