Day 69, Sunday, November 5, 2023
We are going to visit the Lyon Zoo today. We haven’t been to a zoo yet this trip and I love zoos. I’m not sure what this one will be like as it is free. Usually zoos are quite expensive…it takes a lot of money to take care of all those animals.
These beautiful Passion flowers covered a wall right beside our bus stop.
We find an outdoor market on our way to the indoor Lyon market. This is the first time we have seen the produce arranged in these metal bowls. Only 2€ for a big bowl of lemons or tomatoes. We bought a bowl of plums for 2€…they were good but it did add a couple pounds to Bob’s backpack for the rest of the day!
There are a lot of people shopping today. The prices are very reasonable and the produce looks amazing.
This pedestrian street lead us to Les Halles de Lyon,…the indoor market.
I thought this was an interesting combination of buildings…old and new.
Inside there are many types of poultry, all with heads still attached. This is so that it is easy to tell what type of bird you are purchasing. Apparently in “old times” people were being sold “this meat” as “that meat”, not getting what they paid for… so butchers were told to start leaving the heads/feathers/feet on birds they sell so that customers will know exactly what they’re buying. This is still in practice today. The spotted birds are guinea fowl and the brown gathered birds are pheasants!
We grow peas in our garden and shell huge bowls full when we harvest. I never thought about how much it would cost to buy shelled peas…almost $60.00 a kg!
But that doesn’t even come close to the price of truffles! WOW!! That is over $2000 a kg!
French pastries are getting expensive too. I sure notice the difference from when I was here nine years ago. The big raspberry one is €59.90….or $86.00! 
Even these little pastries are 8.90€ each.
These micro macarons are the cutest, tiniest I have ever seen. They are the size of a nickel…barely a mouthful!
The candied fruits look delicious. I think we will have to try some before we leave France.
I have no idea how they make whole candied fruits?
I had to laugh at these monkey lamps! I didn’t notice our reflections until I was editing photos for this post.
We arrive at the park and find a bench for our lunch and realize that we are in the zoo already. The deer enclosure is huge with lots of grass and trees. No fence, just a ditch to keep the animals in. So far I am impressed.
The flamingos are always fun and they can be very noisy!
This is an old bear cage from many years ago. It is left to show how zoos have improved the way animals are housed today. I am so very glad that they are no longer in use…it is terrible to think of a bear living in here its entire life.
This Watusi, or Ankole cow shared an enclosure with the giraffes.
I love giraffes, and there are four beautiful ones in this zoo, including this young one.
They are just as interesting looking coming…
as they are going!
They have impossible necks that simply do not look strong enough to hold up their heads! An interesting giraffe fact, they have seven vertebrae in their necks …exactly the same number of vertebrae as we have!
I don’t know the name of this cute little bird, but it ran around on the ground and it didn’t mind being close to people, even when some children tried to pet it.
One more flamingo photo…loved their reflections in the water.
The pelicans are amazing and their fathers have hints of pink and yellow.
The zoo has over 300 animals in 66 species. We also saw many other animals including leopards, monkeys, and gibbons, but they weren’t in the mood to pose for photos! The whole zoo is very well maintained, the animals look in great condition and their enclosures were clean and spacious with lots of trees, shrubs and grasses…it is all funded by the city of Lyon. We were very impressed. It is a small zoo but just right for an afternoon visit. 
There is a play area for kids and we had fun watching children try their hand at harness racing…with reins that actually worked to steer their horses. Then it looked like it was going to rain again, so we head of home. There was a downpour when we first arrived but we found shelter under the roof at a puppet theatre so we stayed dry.
Our metro station on the way home is not busy at all.
When we get home this notice is on the door to the building. The bedbug sniffer dogs are arriving tomorrow morning to check out nine apartments and returning on the 30th to recheck another 6 apartments. There are 34 apartments in this building and looks like 14 of them have bedbug problems. So far so good, there is no sign of them in our apartment….but I think it is a good thing we are leaving tomorrow morning
I love giraffes, and there were five of them at this zoo.
I spent a bit of time sketching one of them while he was busy eating his lunch. The Meerkats live next door to the giraffes. This fellow was very busy checking out all the people who were checking him out.
There are lots of birds here. This is the first time I have seen a hornbill perched in a tree. They usually walk along the ground. This Abyssinian Ground Hornbill is a huge bird, about one metre in length and weighing about four kilograms.
The Northern Bald Ibis is a very strange looking bird. They are in a huge aviary with lots of other birds that we walk through.
These beautiful Rose Pelicans were busy preening and enjoying the sunshine.
We check out a building with lots of different little colourful birds and I didn’t even notice that there was no glass between us and the birds until Bob pointed it out!
This is the bat cave, and yes it is full of flying bats, and we walk right into the cave with them! When I first entered the cave a bat brushed by my hand and startled me. I hadn’t realized that they were flying all about. It was almost impossible to take a photo, they move so very quickly and it was quite dark. The bats are just shadowy blurs in this photo, where they come to feed on fruit hanging fro the ceiling.
We move from the tiny bats to this massive Indian Rhino. This is the first time we have seen an Indian Rhino and they are quite different from the African Rhino. I loved the way his skin forms armour-like plates. I absolutely had to try to draw this fellow. He moved about a bit but was quite a good model!
The Munich Zoo has a lot of different primates. This chimpanzee was busy using a stick as a tool to get food out of a box. He was very possessive of his stick and kept it close at all times.
but this laid back guy just wanted to take it easy.
I always think that the gorillas are watching us as much as we are watching them. They seem so intelligent and always rather sad.
This Sumatran Orangutan mother and her twins were hilarious. The youngsters would not leave her alone no matter what she did. They were hanging on to her and pestering her even when she tried to hide in a corner. As she walked away, one of her youngsters grabbed hold of her hand and slid along the floor behind her. It just made me laugh.
We waited to see the lions being fed, expecting it to be quite exciting… but it consisted of the two males being separated and then thrown a couple dead plucked chickens. The lions took their food to a private spot so we couldn’t see them chowing down.
We checked back a while later and I said that they would probably be sleeping after their meal. Here they are, looking very happy and content, and yes, they were sleeping.
The elephants were quite far away so I zoomed in for a photo.
There were several kinds of penguins. The Humboldt Penguins live on the coast of Peru and Chile and don’t mind being warm. The Emperor, and the Rock Hopper Penguins, however, like it cold and they had their own refrigerated area.
The Ring Tailed Lemur from Madagascar holds his long tail straight up in the air when it travels on the ground so that everyone in the group can stay together. That must be quite the sight! 
We watched this tortoise take forever to climb this tiny little incline. It was really hard work for her and I so wished I could have just reached in and given her a little bit of help.
There was great excitement at the Hamadryas Baboon enclosure. Lots of screaming and shrieking noises. It appeared that several of the big males were attacking one of the other baboons.
When these four big males come running everyone else clears out, getting away from them as quickly as they can.
We see lots of interesting animals, including a Maned Wolf, a Darwin’s Rhea, a Capybara and a Red River Hog. 
The Nyalas are beautiful with their striking white stripes and the male is much darker with long yellow-tipped horns.
I always love the zebras. They were mostly farther away but this beauty came close enough for a photo.
Not sure that we have ever seen a Reeve’s Muntjac or a Kiang before.
Now these are called European Elk, but they sure look like moose to me. Google tells me this is what a moose is called in Europe. Interesting little fact.
This polar bear had a huge enclosure with a big water area as well as a big grassy, treed area, but it chose to sit in this corner. Something in the area next to him caught his eye and his reflection was caught in the glassed part of his cage.
We are almost finished our visit when we see a crowd of people and go check what they are looking at. A Linnaeus Two Toed Sloth was making his way across a rope just above everyone’s heads. It was quite exciting to see him up so close, and yes, they do move incredibly deliberately and very slowly!
Now, this was something to see! This tall slide is in one of the zoo’s many playgrounds.
Did you notice all the kids inside the structure? They are climbing up to the top so that they can slide down. The inside of the tower is like a giant jungle gym, only really high!
There are no safety features of any kind, just lots of little kids climbing way up high on these logs inside the tower. This is something that we would never see at home due to safety concerns and liability issues. The kids were all having a great time though!
The zoo closes at 6:00 and we are one of the last to leave. It was an absolutely lovely day.
and my metro sketches.
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