Visiting the renovated city zoo in Star Zagora, Bulgaria. Family time weekend with the kids.

Yesterday we decided to go to the near city of Stara Zagora and visit the renovated city zoo. Last time we were there was when my bigger son was about 1 year old, which is about two years back in time. It’s quite some time for a renovation so we expected to see a really big changes in the zoo.

The city of Stara Zagora is about 35 kilometers away from our town and is reachable very fast with a car. As we wanted to have a walk before the daytime heat, we departed from home about 9:30 which is very early for us with the kids.

The zoo is located in a nice park in the skirts of the city where the forest starts on a hillside. This location makes the place a bit more fresh and the summer heat is not so intense. Also, you go away from the city noice and have some time in the nature. From the car parking, there is this alley that is about couple of hundred meters long. We were already seeing the excitement building up in our big boy.

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Shortly we reached the new gates of the zoo and they really look modern and clean as a concept. The surrounding buildings were all in the same style - steel and wooden planks which looked really awesome. We payed 1$ for an adult ticket while the kids up to 7 years of age had a free pass. From 7 to 18 years old are paying 0,5$ which is extremely low price even for the standard in Bulgaria. And this is, of course, for something recently renovated.

A quick brother photo before entering

An interesting statue of two playing baby bears welcomes all the visitors and I remember this statue for seemingly forever. It’s great that they decided to keep it and together with it, the original spirit of the place. From this statue starts the pathway winding between the cages of various animals, and the first to see are the birds.

In this zoo there are mainly peacocks along with various different chickens and turkeys. There are some more exotic species as parrots as well.

Going further up the alley you reach the bears’ corner where more than a dozen of bears are living and enjoying some water facilities. The kids are usually more excited here because the bears are the first animals in the zoo that are bigger and not an everyday sight.

One of the bears was posing like a model on the rock.

Down the road there is a wide area where more animals live. There was an American Buffalo, some ostriches, wild goats and Bulgarian sheep.

It’s really nice to see how all the cages are decorated similarly with these planks as metal structure that really look up to time.

Some of the more exotic animals that can be seen are a couple of lions and some big tigers. Lions are really not a common sight in the nature of Bulgaria 😁

And what is a zoo without some monkeys? I remember that there were bigger species available in the zoo the last time we visited it, but this time there were only little ones. The kids were happy with them too!

And there are of course a lot more species that I really cannot cover all in just one post, but believe me, the diversity is huge! And you’ll probably need about two hours to walk around everything. Finally, there are some “fake” animals that bring even more joy to the kids, and the money from them go right into the municipality of Stara Zagora which is a great way to grant sone additional income.

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This was a day really well spend and the kids were really happy with everything. Definitely will go there again when the little boy becomes bigger! See you soon and have a great day!