Parco Natura Viva e Vetriolo

On Saturday, we visited the Parco Natura Viva zoo and safari park near Lago di Garda. We had bought groupon tickets a while back but had to make reservations to use them. Unfortunately, for us, the day with available reservations also happened to be a day when it was nearly unbearably hot. But we went anyway.

The zoo is very very nice. They had very nice habitats, a great variety of animals, and a design such that the animals were visible even to the smallest visitors. We had a very nice time, though we quit after seeing only about half of the zoo. The drive-through safari part was nice as well (mostly because we were back in the air conditioned car), though it was harder to take as much time as you wanted on each animal. Overall, the favorites were the goats (Cora insists they were deer), the pig, and the "leopard of the snow" (as Maya called it, because she was translating from Italian). It would have been the cheetah, but we're not convinced that the zoo actually has a cheetah (it refused to be seen).

After the zoo and safari park, we drove back towards Trento. We decided to head up to Vetriolo, which is a small town on one of the mountains above Levico (where the Piccos live). Here there is a steep meadowed hill from which people launch themselves into the air (mostly with paragliders, but sometimes hang-gliders). We were lucky enough that they were still launching when we arrived, and it was very neat to watch. It was also 11 degrees (Celsius!) cooler on top of the mountain than in the valley.