There is such a thing as a free entrance to the local botanical garden?! Never heard of this in the…read moreUS but definitely happy to come check out the lush greenery of Gothenburg! Such a serene and beautiful place!!

Gothenburg Botanical Gardens has over 16,000 plant species that are cultivated in greenhouses and…read morelandscaped gardens. Highlights include a rock garden, a kitchen garden that grows hundreds of vegetables, and an herb garden with an 18th-century summerhouse. Gothenburg Botanical Gardens is open year round and is a perfect place to walk, rest, admire, and reflect. Gayle and I recently visited the Gothenburg Botanical Garden during a shore excursion off our Oceania Cruise ship. As with most of these kind of tours, we really only experienced a small taste of what this wonderful oasis offers. However, our tour guide was very good at accenting some of the highlights. They also have a nice gift shop, of which I picked up nice illustrated 2024 calendrer. Please enjoy some of my pictures.

On our month-long trip to Europe in 2015, we decided to split our time in Sweden between two…read morecities, and the first city (stop #5 overall) was Göteborg, the second largest city in Sweden. Göteborg, in my opinion, is not a pretty city. It's ugly, and for that reason, I would not want to live there. However, I enjoyed my brief time in Göteborg, and it was there that I went to one of my favourite attractions, Slottsskogen, a HUGE park which has a small zoo within. I also went to the Göteborg City Museum, a great, inexpensive museum; the botanical garden (Botaniska Trädgården); and Universeum, a family-oriented science museum. Except for Universeum, everything was free or inexpensive, so if you're looking for a city where you don't have to spend much on attractions, Göteborg is the place to go. [Yelp collections: Europe 2015; Göteborg, Sweden; Cities; Cheap Thrills]

Some people come here for the animals, but some people's husbands (who shall remain nameless) come…read morehere for the surprisingly good burgers at Simba Grill..... Anyways, it's a beautiful park, you can walk more than 10k steps just going one lap around the park. We took the route where you stayed with Dino land and then move on to the farm land and through to the bears and onto to the lions and Savannah area and then you end by taking the giant skywalk out. The park is kept super clean and the walkways are wide, so even if it's crowded there's plenty of space for strollers and large groups. We've been a few times now and when it's raining it's very empty, we almost had the park to ourselves when it was raining. The animals are all usually out and available to see, with special events throughout the day where you can watch them feed the animals and talk about them. However, if it is raining it seems like they don't have those events which was a huge bummer as we had planned our day around seeing the lions and bears eating but they didn't do the event and they also didn't post any signs saying it was cancelled. Most importantly, if you're going to get lunch the best option is simba grill. They have a great burger and fish and chips. The Savannah restaurant has the best view of the animals and the meatball buffet is ok, pretty standard, but the simba grill food is actually very good!

It's a nice park, where you will not see all animals locked in cages. Instead, it looks pretty…read morenatural. For sure you'll see fences, but the animals walk around with lot's of space. The paths inside the park are well-maintained and good accessable with wheelchair or with small kids. At the entrance of the park you find a time-schedule when the animals get feeded. There are a couple of shops and restaurants in the park, but it's not too pushy and disturbing. You will not feel ashamed when you bring your own drinks into the park. In the park you'll find a few playgrounds for smaller and bigger kids. All together a good park, nice to visit. One minor remark: All information in the park is in Swedish only. Foreighn tourists might have a language problem there.