Weltvogelpark Walsrode
First published in 2020
The Weltvogelpark Walsrode doesn't have an official English name. In former times they simply named themselves Bird Park Walsorde but the actual name would be rather World Bird Park Walsrode. Unfortunately, their homepage is in German language only as well.
Walsrode is north of Hanover and southeast of Bremen and can be reached from both cities in about one hour by car. Parking is easy as it is a little bit out of town and they have plenty of parking lots for free. Please bear in mind that the park is closed during winter.
The park is the largest bird park in the world both in terms of size and number of species. The park is really huge. It covers 24 hectares what is more than 33 soccer fields. The footpaths alone are more than 4 km long. On their homepage, they claim that an average visit takes 4-6 hours and that is really what you need if you want to visit the whole park. We were rather at the upper end of this range, even though we rushed through some of the areas.
Quite a lot of birds are kept in cages (too many for my liking), but they also have big aviaries where the birds have plenty of room and where you can walk in and see them without obstacles. Here you can find a map of the whole area.
But the star are the flight shows. There is one in the morning and one in the afternoon and as both of them are slightly different it makes sense to visit both. When we were there they also had an additional training session at noon that was worthwhile to visit as well. As the shows are the main attraction the seats are filled quickly, so make sure to be there early if you are looking for an undisturbed view.
