Had a leisurely start to the morning and wandered across to the entrance gate to buy tickets for the park. There was real confusion at the ticket office but after about an hour we managed to buy our tickets and head off on the bikes for a cycle tour. The forest wasn't quite how I had imagined it would be. It has achieved UNESCO status because it is the last piece of the primaeval forest that used to cover the european continent before human beings started to chop it down. I must confess I was a little disappointed. As it was described as primaeval I had images of Jurassic Park style swamps and big old trees. It looked well managed with lots of cut stumps but perhaps that was all I could see from the cycle path, there were lots of different species of trees and I'm not an expert. We had a picnic lunch by the lake and it was eerily quiet with very little birdlife. There were 'wild animals' behind bars, bears in a cage. Deer, wolves and bison in separate enclosures. We didn't cycle up for a closer look as the sight of caged animals is upsetting. Partcularly the bears who looked crazed by being in such a small space. It was great day out and although this reads a bit on the negative side it wasn't at all.
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