...are Auckland ZOO and National Art Gallery. Well, at least if you are just like me and my boyfriend - he, an animal lover, who always makes me go to the ZOO in every city we visit together, and me - the artistic one.
1 The Auckland ZOO
It was the first ZOO, where we have gone through all the paths showed on the map. We spend there three hours (somebody else could maybe spend there four or five hours, if he would read every sign and have a coffee or two), but I think three hours were just enough.
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| The red panda looks like a big red fluffy cat. |
Highlights for us? Red pandas, real kiwis (I almost cannot believe they really exist, they are like unicorns, you see their pictures everywhere and people are talking about them, but you rarely see one) and very nice aviaries with friendly birds.
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| YAY! |
What I liked: drinking fountains everywhere, very nice gift shop and interesting legends nearby the animals.
What I didn't like: not a great variety of places to have a snack (eating at ZOO is my favourite part of the visit usually), lack of geographical locations in descriptions of animals (a.k.a. they are happy to announce that some animal is super poisonous, but fail to say, if it lives in NZ or not.)
And here is the official website.
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| I just liked this guy, so I took a picture of him. |
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| You can have a snack at Darwin's. |
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| Me, taking care of plastic kiwi. |
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| This turtle is real. |
2 The Auckland Art Gallery
Firstly, it is situated in an awesome building. Sometimes I suspect myself, that I actually don't like the art itself and the paintings and other stuff displayed are sometimes boring (oh my, what a public confession), but the whole atmosphere of galleries just makes me feel better instantly. Big rooms painted in calming colours, awesome light (which makes you think you are a great photographer, because basically you cannot make a really awful picture in there), quite environment, nice leaflets and maps of museum with an aroma of novelty and exclusivity...
Well, if you are trying to find a nice place to relax and unwind for a while in the middle of busy central Auckland, try Art Gallery. We were expecting more of a Maori oriented art, but it all looked a little bit too European to really catch our attention. But I liked some contemporary pieces from NZ artists and portraits of famous Maori people as they were accompanied by the whole story about them. It is really fascinating, that just some two hundred years ago, people were travelling long weeks from UK to New Zealand and back again, getting married, fighting for their causes and trying to find their own place under the sun... what an adventurous life they had!
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| This looks to me almost like in Vienna. |
Okay, let's stop this daydreaming session, here is some practical info about the gallery: it is free, it is nice and opened every day from 10am to 5pm except Christmas Day (they do not have that nasty custom of closing museums and galleries on Mondays like at some other places in the world).
More info here and some pictures of this awesome place below.
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| A contemporary installation.... |
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| I liked this one. A glowing broom. |
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