Seeing Animals Close up at ARTIS Zoo

Dann and I both very much enjoy going to a zoo, with or without our children. While in Amsterdam, we decided to check out ARTIS Zoo, which is a fairly large zoo just outside the city centre. There actually is much more than just a zoo in this venue; you can also purchase tickets to the attached Museum or go inside the cafe, planetarium, aquarium (though this was under construction at the time of our visit) or go inside one of their many animal houses like their indoor bird houses or monkey houses. And, to be honest, Dann and I agreed this was the best zoo we have every been to.

We opted to pay an extra 2 euros for the map of the zoo, though it was very well sign posted everywhere, then started our adventure. I think Dann and I decided to go around the outside, but we really did spend an entire day there as there was so much to see! I loved seeing the elephants, in a massive enclosure, playing with balls and bathing themselves in sand. There were these little spy glasses that you could look through that had information on them; pictures of elephants having a bath or information about baby elephants. Another spy glass showed elephants under a heat detector before and after their mud baths, then you could look through the heat detector! It was so neat.

We went towards the birds and into the bird house, which had tons of free-flying birds, swooping around and hanging out. None of them seemed scared of people at all! We could also see these birds outside, from their outdoor part of their enclosures, which was lovely too. Many of the enclosures had more than one type of bird, that seemed to live together well, hanging out. The bird area is right by the indoor monkey area, where we were greeted by ARTIS staff, who started pointing out the monkeys and sloths that were hanging out. He had such an excitement about the animals, and it was so cool to see them moving about around us and reacting to other people who entered.

The other indoor area that had free-moving animals was the butterfly garden at ARTIS Zoo, which was very large and had lots of little hidden dips and paths around it. There were tons of different butterflies fluttering about – and at the entrance was a little machine where you could warm up your glasses so they didn’t fog when you first entered. That’s the thing, this zoo felt so well designed! We walked up a giant set of stairs to see a lion and two of their lionesses, saw a black leopard hanging out on a huge rock, and went into a big insect area, indoors, full of skeletons of insects and different varieties of insects. From there, we went to the reptile enclosure, which always feels like such a fun game of spot-the-reptile (and again, there were SO MANY!) that also had a big window looking out at a bunch of birds who were just as interested in the humans as we were them.

When it comes to lemurs, one of our favorites, not only did we find a big area with ring-tailed lemurs all hanging out inside, but there were also free-roaming red lemurs, with ARTIS staff keeping an eye on them, walking around various areas. We got SO close to them and got to see them move around in such a fun way. There were so many other animals; otters, seals, so many birds… I really love this so much.

Dann and I didn’t want to go into the planetarium, which had a 45-minute long demo running every hour, but this was nicely placed inside the cafe. There was also a gift shop at ARTIS, however, they don’t force you to walk out of it and it’s in a completely separate side building.

You can check out our other Days Out to see what else we’ve been up too!