France La Palmyre Zoo Reviews

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Good Points: A wide variety of animals. Large, beautiful park. Cheap entrance fee. You can actually touch many of the animals. Excellent photo opportunities.

Bad Points: Some enclosures could look a little more "natural". I felt some of the primates were in sorry conditions with no access to outdoor areas. Food here is quite expensive for what it is. Toilets. Many dead ends.

General comments: La Palmyre zoo is absolutely beautiful. If you are visiting this area of France I strongly recommend a visit! To enter the park, adults pay 14 euros, children over 3 pay 10 euros, so it is a bargain day out. I would personally set aside 3-4 hours for a day out here.
Upon entry you have the option to buy a bag of popcorn to hand feed some of the huge variety of animals such as the giraffes and elephants which help make for amazing photo opportunities.
As it is such a large zoo, I didn't find it to be very packed, even during the holidays, the only places where it became very crowded were around the shows. There are two shows involving sealions and parrots. I didn't get to see the parrot show but I saw the sealion show, although it was in French, it was excellent, great fun, not too exploiting.
I would advise taking a packed lunch and eating it in the designated picnic areas, the price wasn't a problem until I saw what the 4 euro cheeseburgers consisted of a french brand of microwave-in-packet cheeseburger which come in packs of 6 and can be bought in a local intermarche for 2 euros and 60 cents. The only food on offer is over-priced yet poor quality microwavable food and crepes. Also beware of the toilets, they are "holes in ground" ala French motorway stops, so can be a bit troublesome with children!
As well as a petting area containing goats you can actually get up close and personal with the larger animals, giraffes and elephants. There are brilliant underwater viewing areas to see Otters and Polar bears just inches from you on the otherside of the glass.
The settings here are beautiful, lots of nice trees and plants and well landscaped. However, there are many dead end paths which lead to no where and it is easy to end up going around in circles.
The animals themselves are clearly looked after well and in good conditions. Some of the primates however looked like they were just cooped up in their indoor runs, but they did look happy.