Details
Pécs Zoo
The popular Pécs Zoo and Aquarium-Terrarium, opened in 1960, was built on the side of Mecsek, in a beautiful environment. The 4-hectare Pécs Zoo above the town is the highest zoo in Hungary.
Nearly 1500 animals of more than 300 animal species live here and are waiting for their guests. In addition to an aquarium, terrarium and outdoor enclosures, viewing rooms, a restaurant and a snack bar await visitors. Joint sight feedings, group leadership and zoopedagogical activities are also available.
The Pécs Zoo can also be visited by people with disabilities. They and their companions – under the given conditions, these can be found on the website of the Zoo – are offered discounted entrance tickets that can be purchased on site.
Overall, the park and its buildings can be accessed by wheelchairs, although help is needed in the outdoor part: due to the terrain conditions by Mecsek Hill, the slopes are sometimes steep. The good news is that there are benches in several places in the main building and in the park, but some outdoor benches have a seating area higher than 50 cm.
The main entrance can be accessed via a ramp with railings from both the sidewalk and the car park. The doors have door brakes set to light, so opening them does not cause difficulties.
At the cash desks, the counters are of sufficient height even for wheelchairs, but the yellow-black stripe leading to the first cash desk, which helps the visually impaired, has worn out. Upstairs can be reached by elevator or stairs. The steps are of average height, there are no contrasting and tactile markings on the edges, no anti-slip bands.
Barrier-free toilet and baby changing room are located next to the main building. The toilet is wheelchair comfortable, clean. There is no anti-slip on the toilet seat. The handrail is stable, easy to fold up.
The restaurant in the main building is barrier-free, with manual wheelchair access to tables.
Wheelchairs can be used to get around the main building, but stairs lead to the window overlooking the seals' pool.
Tactile signs and audio guides for visually impaired people are currently not available, we have been promised the multilingual introduction of the latter. There is no induction loop for the hearing impaired.
Upstairs, in the terrarium, there is also an elevator. The elevator is located after the cash desks, at the beginning of the aquarium section opening to the right. The elevator finally informs loudly, which is always a refreshing exception for us when it comes to the often forgotten accessibility of elevators. Its buttons are labeled Braille. Flat-script numbers are also palpable for visually impaired people who are not familiar with Braille. The control buttons are accessible from a wheelchair, they are of sufficient size and distance.
Upstairs is the exciting terrarium, which is accessible without barriers. However, there is a staircase leading to the training room, so it is not accessible to a wheelchair.
In the outer area of the park, we could fit even on the narrowest path with a manual wheelchair. The steeper paths, the slope leading to the Africa Terrace, can be a problem.
Wide stairs and a ramp also lead to the tiger-lion-hippopotamus house in the park. Railing is only on the right side of the ramp. The door opens easily, inside there are men's/women's toilets (these are not barrier-free), benches, interactive educational wall boards. There are snack bars in the park, which were closed during our winter visit. The Buffet terrace is not accessible without barriers.
You can leave the zoo area without barriers through the entrance.
Website:
The website is extremely informative, well structured. It is a bit difficult to follow for visually impaired users, this is confirmed by our autistic member. You can't really navigate through the descriptions of animals, you can't read them all individually. By clicking on the main menu items (programs, services, etc.) it is disturbing that some of the descriptions of animals are displayed, and the essential information is lost or not even displayed. There are a lot of interstitial images that interfere with continuous text reading, causing the screen reader to lose focus. There are no descriptions for the images, which makes them unenjoyable for visually impaired people. If you are visually impaired, you can only see the ticket prices menu item in its entirety.
Getting there:
by bus, lines 34, 35, 35Y stop on the other side of the road at a stop called "Állatkert". Barrier-free, low-floor buses run with visual information with LED displays, voice information can be quiet at times. The arrival stop is barrier-free. The pavement here is smooth, there is no painted zebra on the roadway, but there are tactile signs indicating danger on the curbs.
On the side towards the city: rounded curb is located just slightly further away, crossing from the parking lot. The width of the pavement leading to the bus stop is not the same here, it varies between 120-95 cm. It may be more difficult to turn around in a wheelchair at the stop, because a 2-6 cm high curb makes the pavement narrower.
Between the bus stops and the entrance on arrival it is 1-2 minutes, back 2-4 minutes walk to the Zoo.
by car it can be reached from Málics Ottó Street, Lapisi Road and Dömörkapu Road. In front of the zoo there are two accessible parking lots right next to each other. The signs indicating them are, in our opinion, placed a little high (170-180 cm). The main building can be easily accessed via a properly designed ramp from the accessible parking lots.
Hilda
The zoo does its best to provide an unforgettable experience for new and returning visitors, and the staff are helpful and friendly.
The website contains a lot of useful and interesting information – however, I can’t say it is well structured, there are just several contradictory comments in the description above and I have experienced others that not only affect the user experience for disabled visitors but are challenging for everyone.
It would be helpful if the website could be reviewed by the operators and changes made where necessary.