As a kid my family used to have a yearly pass for entry to the Antwerp Zoo and the dependency of Planckendael in Muizen near Mechelen, thus I visited both parks regularly.

However as I grew older it the pass was used less and less and my parents decided to stop buying it, as a result I didn’t visit either parks in quite some time. This summer I decided to tag along when my parents and sister went for a new visit.

Zoo Planckendael opened in 1960 on a former castle domain as an overflow park for the Antwerp Zoo, when they had a lack of room in their inner city location. Over the years it has been expanded into a big and spacious animal park.

When I entered the park this summer after years of not going there I couldn’t recognise anything from the old days. They constructed a new entrance in a different location and the entire parks was reconstructed into different subdivisions, each representing a part of the world.

Each subdivision was styled in the style of the continent it represented and housed animals living there. When walking through each ‘continent’ you feel like you are actually in that part of the world. In Africa you have an entire African village and in Asia you have an old train hidden in the woods.

There are also a number of animal ‘cages’ you can walk through and almost touch the animals as they are free to roam (or fly) around there.

Al in all I was very surprised by how much the park has changed and in my opinion has become much more attractive and unique than before, I will certainly visit again in the future!

Have you visited the Zoo Planckendael and did you like the new themed setup? Let us know in the comments below!