The Oceanium tunnel
Sharks and turtles overhead — the continent's finest ocean.
The original uploader was Sherpa at Dutch Wikipedia. — CC BY-SA 3.0 · AgainErick — CC BY-SA 4.0 · YosemiteYamper — CC BY-SA 4.0 · Jar0d — CC BY-SA 2.0
Rotterdam's venerable garden (1857) ranked among Europe's loveliest: Blijdorp is a designed continents journey — Asia with elephants and Tibetan forest, Africa's giraffe-and-lion savannah, Amazon and pole — its thirties Riekhof buildings listed architectural heritage themselves. Its jewel is the Oceanium: the shark-and-turtle tunnel passing underwater through giant halls — among the continent's finest aquariums — plus seals, butterflies and a polar house whose white bears led Europe's breeding programme for decades. The grounds are vast and level with an inner train and successive playgrounds — a full family day of Dutch weather: its rainy half sheltered by successive indoor houses — and literal metro minutes from central Rotterdam.
Sharks and turtles overhead — the continent's finest ocean.
Open Africa against the listed thirties buildings.
A zoo listed as architectural heritage itself — rare of kind.
Blijdorplaan 8, 3041 Rotterdam
The Oceanium at Blijdorp ZooThe oceans section inside Rotterdam's Blijdorp Zoo, opened in 2001 and regarded 7 minutes walk4.6
Miniworld RotterdamAll Holland at 1:87 under one roof: the Benelux's largest indoor miniature world12 minutes walk4.5
Houweling Telecom MuseumA museum of the history of telecommunications, showing a collection of telephone15 minutes walk4.6
Stationsplein, RotterdamThe square in front of Rotterdam Centraal, the first thing an arriving visitor s15 minutes walk4.5
The Delftse Poort TowerAn office skyscraper beside Rotterdam Centraal station, completed in 1991, and f17 minutes walk4.3Size and modernity clearly here: Blijdorp doubles the ground with newer systems and an Oceanium the neighbour cannot answer — ARTIS winning historic charm and city-heart. Practically: the Amsterdam-based settle for ARTIS; Rotterdam visitors or aquarium families come here without hesitating.
Against the school current: Oceanium at opening, then Asia and elephants before noon — savannah after lunch as shade livens it — the pole closing for its kind cold. The inner train serves exhausted small legs, the map posting feeding times each morning.
Blijdorp ran Europe's polar bear studbook for decades — its cubs filling the continent's zoos — the polar house's glass pool the famous diving theatre. A conservation success told on its panels — the bear the first climate ambassador to small visitors.