Katowice; Saturday, 25 May, 2013

Another late start and very filling breakfast. I headed out of the hotel and over to the Rynek to pick up the tram out to the Park of Culture and Recreation.

The massive park covers 620 hectares and includes lots of attractions. I started off by catching the tram up to the very top of the park to visit the ethnographic museum.

After looking around that I had a long wander back through the park until I eventually reached the Zoo towards the southern end of the park.

I went into the zoo and to begin with it all appeared pretty OK, but part way round I started to have real qualms about it, several of the animals were pacing backwards and forwards over small areas in their cages, most noticeably the single elephant and one of the two brown bears.

Even more concerning was the visible rib-cage in the rather thin looking lion, which could just have been the zoo ensuring it was having a diet closer to what it would get in the wild – I suppose a really tubby lion would possibly be even worse – but it didn’t add to the general feeling of unease about the zoo.

With the weather starting to close in a bit I decided to head back into town and finished off walking through the park to the tram stop.

Within a few seconds of boarding the tram a massive shower came down that made me very thankful that I had left the zoo when I did. By the time I got back into the city centre it had calmed down to a light drizzle, but the threatening clouds made it clear it was only a brief rest bite, so I decided to head back to the hotel, arriving a couple of minutes before another cloudburst.

After the weather finally calmed down for the night I headed out to find a bite to eat, then it was back to the hotel for a nightcap before turning in.