You all know about the Crystal Palace dinosaurs. In my lifetime, these went from the poster children of outdated, stodgy views of ponderous swamp dinosaurs, to being the most celebrated monuments of early dinosaur art around. And they are not alone. I’ve made it my mission to visit as many historic, unique dinosaur models in Europe as I can find, such as Boudewijn Bollee’s dinosaurs of Artis in Amsterdam and the dinosaurs of Chorzów Zoo in Poland. This spring, I…
When the days get shorter and leaves start to fall, there’s always a zoo somewhere in the Netherlands that gets taken over by dinosaurs. In previous years, I’ve covered dinosaur events at ZooParc Overloon and the former Dierenrijk, now Eindhoven Zoo. This year, to my mild surprise, it was the turn of our biggest and best zoo, the legendary Burgers’ Zoo in Arnhem. Of course, the general quality of Burgers’, combined with the pretty great animatronic dinosaurs on display at…
If one were to follow a single golden rule when traveling abroad, then it would surely be that any opportunity must be taken to visit a park exhibiting model dinosaurs in the woods, so long as it is within a reasonable traveling distance. Naturally, Agata and I followed this important principle when we recently stayed with her aunt and uncle in the city of Toruń, located in the Kuyavian-Pomeranian Voivodeship (province) of Poland. In the same region of the country,…
Hi everyone, and willkommen! Today, we’re in the fine city of Cologne, Germany, and visiting the wonderful Kölner Zoo! I didn’t know this in advance, but it turns out there’s a dinosaur event on this year! What a nice surprise. I check for dinosaur events in my area every year, so it’s extra nice to be surprised every now and again. Oh boy, let’s look at some dinosaur animatronics! I’m excited already. Oh bugger. The banner has an AI generated…
Not wanting the last post of the year to be a vanilla Vintage Dinosaur Art post featuring some filler art from 20 years ago presented a conundrum. What else am I supposed to do these days? A few different ideas came to mind – a bit of personal reflection, a review of a museum or other attraction that I’d failed to post about, or a humorous comparison of ‘expert reacts’ videos regarding dinosaur media. In the end, I decided to…
That time again: Another zoo in the Netherlands has been dinosaurified! Previously I showed you the dinosaurs that came to ZooParc Overloon, Dierenrijk and GaiaZoo. This time, it’s Ouwehands Dierenpark in the town of Rhenen that has been visited by creatures from millions of years ago. There’s a twist, though; whereas the previous attractions centered around the usual models and animatronics, this attraction is a dinosaur-themed edition of Ouwehands’ yearly Light Nights winter event. That means these dinosaurs are light…
Given Sam Bright’s excellent recent guest post on the Crystal Palace dinosaurs, it only seems fitting that we turn to another, more modern park full of full-scale life reconstructions of prehistoric beasts. Except, of course, this is firmly on the kitsch-o-saurus end of the scale, and there certainly won’t be a reference section at the end. Leave it to me to the lower the tone. What’s more, this is yet another example of me wallowing in childhood nostalgia. For I…
I wanted to do something quirky to close off the year. I like to think we are all dinosaur kitsch connaisseurs here. As the blog’s resident European mainlander, I have made it my mission to visit lots of dinosaur-related attractions, expositions and museums around the continent. I will then write whatever there is to write, whether it’s about priceless, unique vintage models in Poland or rubbish animatronics at some zoo. I’ve found that in this time of plenty there is…
Zoo Chorzów, or the Silesian Zoological Park, is located a stone’s throw from the centre of Katowice in the Upper Silesia region of southern Poland. The zoo was founded on its current location in 1954, as part of the Socialist-era post-mining development of a big city park also including an amusement park, a planetarium, a sports centre and an art gallery. And there’s dinosaurs. The Dinosaur Valley section of the zoo, or the Kotlina Dinozaurów, was finished in 1974. Originally,…
So, you might imagine we’ve all been spoiled a bit lately, what with Prehistoric Planet and all. It’s easy to develop high expectations, and to expect everything to be subject to the same sublime standards of visual quality and scientific accuracy. Lest we get too comfortable, I think it prudent to take a stroll among some good old fashioned ugly Chinese dinosaur animatronics. It’s good to be reminded that dinosaurs in public spaces can still be rubbish, too. Take it…
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Chasmosaurus belli silhouette in custom bulleted list by Scott D. Sampson, Mark A. Loewen, Andrew A. Farke, Eric M. Roberts, Catherine A. Forster, Joshua A. Smith, and Alan L. Titus, CC BY-SA 3.0. Sourced from PhyloPic.