Barcelona zoo and aquarium

Summary
Barcelonaoffers its visitors a host of attractions and entertainment specially meant for the pleasure of the visitors. Take a respite from the humdrum of daily life and spend some hours of fun and activity with the animals in Barcelona's zoo and aquarium.

Barcelona Zoo is based in the Parc de la Ciutadella the best way to find it is to go to the park and to follow the signs to the Zoo. The zoo ranks among the top zoos in Spain. The professionals working at the zoo collaborate with many international and European programs to protect species in danger of extinction – EEP (Programas Europeos de cría en cautividad – European Programs of captivity breeding) and ESB (Programas Europeos de registro de poblaciones cautivas – European Programs for the registration of captive groups). The enclosures are of open construction, allowing you to almost touch the animals. There is an infant zoo where children can be introduced to various animals. The Zoo also has a restaurant, picnic area, a shop, electric cars, ponies and a mini-train.

Barcelona Zoological Park first opened its gates on the Day of the Mercè, patron saint of Barcelona, 1892. The zoo is located in gardens that are over 100 years old and contains a collection of some 7,500 individual animals belonging to 400 species from around the world.
The collection of animals on show there came from a private collection kept by Lluis Marti i Codolar at La Granja Vella, his estate in Horta. He offered the animals to Barcelona City Council, and the mayor, Manuel Porcar, gave his approval to their purchase and the subsequent move to the publicly-owned site that was left vacant in Ciutadella Park after the 1888 Universal Exposition.
Probably after zoo you will want to visit the largest aquarium in Europe. One of the most impressive testimonials to sea life anywhere opened in 1996 in Barcelona's Port Vell, a 10-minute walk from the bottom of the Rambles. L'Aquarium de Barcelona contains 21 glass tanks positioned along either side of a wide, curving corridor. Each tank depicts a different marine habitat, with emphasis on everything from multicolored fish and corals to seagoing worms to sharks.