Cheap and easy options for wonderful time in Izmir

            When we rested in Antalya, Istanbul I asked my turkish friend to show me zoo in those cities. I like such kind of places, and I am sure I am not alone in this.

            When we came to Izmir, on the 3rd day my Prince finally organized our visit to the National life park of Izmir (İzmir Doğal Yaşam Parkı). We spent on the road to that park about 1 hour and 20 minutes. We went from Alsancak region by public transport (first ship, than bus). Of course possible to rent a car and go like that if you know Izmir well and don’t scare big traffic on the roads.

            Our visit in that place was in March (1st or 2nd I don’t remember exactly). We paid for 1 ticket 3 turkish lira (about 1 dollar). For small kids (0-6) free admission. We made mistakes because we came too late. For that excursion needs to have 3 hours in reserve at list. In this case you will not run from one kind of animal to another. National park of Izmir has really large area, with many sections where you can find wild animals, exotic animals, predatory and decorative birds, reptiles, etc.

           Lead of that park organized perfect solutions for those animals: they have chance to walk alfresco in the guarded. For every kind of animal on such territory some buildings, where they hide from rain or sun. There was very big closed area for reptiles (snakes, crocodile, turtle, chameleons, and iguanas), exotic birds and fishes, tropical plants.

Temperature and humidity conditions inside that place was another (hot and stuffily), but we didn’t care and spent inside much time.

            Peacocks, ducks, turkeys walked around the park free, and seems like they didn’t scare visitors. For swans, flamingos, another bird there was built small pools. Here people can spend very long time just for seeing and taking picture that wonderful place.

            We lost in park few times till my friend didn’t take a picture plan of that territory. When we came in the zoo the main animal which I wanted to see was giraffe. I have never seen it in real life, and I think it’s very positive. Till we tried to find giraffe we saw lions, bears, wolfs, hyenas, elephants, zebras, few kinds of monkeys, hippo, horses, family of sloths, deer herd and gaggle, but giraffe we didn’t see!

At the end of our visit, when was announced, that park will close I saw small yellow ears with sweet black spots behind the high fence. We went around that fence few times but we didn’t find an entrance. My friend told that maybe they are ill, because in this case animals can’t walk alfresco.

            I was a little bit sad, but in general I was happy to see such beautiful place. When we visited that place worked till 4 p.m. Buses come to bring people from park every 1 hour. In the summer time zoo works longer, but of course it will depends from weather.

  That park (İzmir Doğal Yaşam Parkı) also has their website http://www.izmirdogalyasamparki.org.tr/ where possible to find some useful information.