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Dino Park Plzen (Czech Republic)
Dinosaur
Wars
Prehistoric fun in the 21st Century
They’re relatively
cheap to construct
and kids can’t get F
or many years Poland lacked a good theme ceased to be just another anonymous farming
park, now dinosaur parks are everywhere. The community, and instead become a trailblazer for the
country’s first park devoted to dinosaurs entire S´wie˛tokrzyski region, attracting tourists from
enough of the theme: opened in 2004 at Baltow in the Kamienna river all over Poland.
Dinosaur parks are valley. The choice of region was not accidental. Apart from dozens of natural size figures of
big business in Since the 1970s, traces of allosaurs, stegosaurs, dinosaurs and other extinct animals, the park offers
Eastern Europe. Here camptosaurus and kompsognats were found in a fossil museum and a children’s playground.
Anna Lukasik surveys Jurassic rocks of the S´wie˛tokrzyskie Mountains. Colourful notice boards placed along the trail offer
the situation in These discoveries would probably have been the information on the geological periods and dinosaur
Poland, while over last were it not for the “Delta” and “Balt” models featured. The youngest visitors can play
the page we profile a development associations from the Baltow paleontologists, digging out a skeleton of a giant
three-strong park Commune. In dinosaurs, they groups spotted an predatory tyrannosaur. The park offers also
chain in Slovakia and extraordinary opportunity for this small, workshops, where children can paint dinosaur
the Czech Republic inconspicuous village. models.
with ambitions to In spring 2004, construction of the Baltow The year 2007 was marked by an abundance of
expand a little further Jurassic Park was launched. The opening took place new dinosaur theme parks in Poland. Then, in April
west just six months later, and since that moment Baltow 2008, Zaurolandia opened in Rogow. This privately
financed park is the biggest Jurassic-themed park in
A typical Polish
Poland, comprising an area of about 20 hectares.
dinosaur exhibit
Its undisputed advantage is that it is located
alongside road number 5, close to Gniezno and
Bydgoszcz, and only 12 km from Biskupin.
According to its owner, Tomasz Szarski, in the first
season Zaurolandia pulled in 247,000 visitors.
There is one man that has created all the exhibits
in Polish dinosaur parks, and that is Krzysztof
Kuchnio. Recently he opened his own park, the
Forest Educational Path in Nowiny Wielkie near
Gorzów Wielkopolski. The concept of this park is
very similar to all the other parks.
The country’s smallest dinosaur park, meanwhile,
opened last year in Koacinek near Lódz. Apart from
dinosaur sightseeing, guests also have the chance
to spend a night on the farm.
Of course dinosaurs also remain one of the most
26 MARCH 2009
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