This zoo is a nice escape from the business of Paris city centre, even though it sits in the middle of it, located in the Jardin Des Plantes - a beautiful park and gardens.
I was excited to see the old buildings and enclosures, since they're from the 1800s. This is true, there's stone buildings with original names above the doors, and lots of ornate metal enclosures... it's nice to look at! The facilities could do with an update though, the toilets were awful, looked like they'd stepped out of the 1800s too!
There's birds, monkeys and big cats. A lot of the other animals seem to be deriving from either cows or goats, we found each enclosure with another variation and saying 'oh it's another goat!'. Haha.
Unfortunately, most of the animals were hiding or inside their little houses so we couldn't see them. This was especially frustrating with the Tasmanian Devil, which I was very excited to see, yet never got to see at all (we even looped back around multiple times to check!). The aviary was beautiful, but we only saw one bird. Although, it's worth mentioning we visited in the height of summer, it was very hot, I don't blame the animals from hiding!
Some of the enclosures did seem a bit small, especially with the monkeys and big cats. Both of these animals are situated where they have an inside area (you can view from inside the building) and an outside area. However these spaces seemed sad and lacking some greenery, these animals want grass and trees, not just some platforms and soil. The inside area of the monkeys was upsetting, one monkey was making a shelter from some old newspapers, whilst another sat at the window, staring at us with solemn eyes.
However, the reptile/amphibian house was fantastic, plenty to see and none of them were hiding! They all seemed really happy in their enclosures - adding plants and enrichment goes a long way. I'd hope they give their bigger animals' homes the same amount of attention in the future.
I enjoyed my visit, I liked escaping the streets for a while. Though the zoo is small, it fills in 1-2 hours at most.