Behind the scenes – the ARTIS Evening Walk

What a great idea from ARTIS, an evening guided walk after closing time! With my love I went to Amsterdam by car . We left the babysitter and the boys well taken care of at home with a delicious lasagna in the oven, so our evening out could begin!

In advance I had asked ARTIS if there would be enough parking. Since the evening walk starts after the regular opening time, there should be plenty of parking on their own property. If not, the parking attendants would direct us to a parking garage nearby. Normally I always go to big cities by public transportation but during this corona period, I don’t see that being so convenient. Upon arrival we were positively surprised, there were hardly any spaces occupied in the large lot. That was going to be a nice quiet evening walk!

Check in

We had both already downloaded the ARTIS Evening Walk app at home and fully charged our phones. We paid for the parking pass immediately upon arrival at the ticket counter. That’s a good idea to do. After all, the ticket booths are open until 8 p.m., the park until 9 p.m.. Then you can go through the park at your leisure without worrying about it. In advance we reserved the time slot 18:00 – 18:15 in which we had to check into the park. From then on, it didn’t matter how long it took us anywhere. It is purely to avoid any crowds at the ticket booths.

Artis App

Earphones in, headphones on and enjoy! It was a nice sight to see everyone in the park walking around with earphones in, it gave a very serene feeling. Normally there is a lot of noise in a zoo from all the visitors. Now everyone was mostly silent because we were listening to Job van Tol. In these evening hours it was mostly couples we saw, from young to old. A single family saw the chance to go to ARTIS at a quiet moment and we saw a BN-er.

Route

It says an hour and a half for the route; after we had walked a third of the way, half an hour had indeed passed and we thought it was time for coffee. The app is self-explanatory: when you turn on the location on your phone, the dots on the map indicate where there is something to listen to. Once you’re near there, you can tap your screen to have Job tell you. As far as I’m concerned, that set-up makes it nicer than a guide who wants to walk through when I want to look even longer. Perfect this! Sometimes we listened to an explanation twice because we missed something. (Then it was mostly my love who did it again because I was babbling to him in between, haha!) He would sometimes catch the signal a little earlier or later than me or one would walk a little faster than the other. By the way, super relaxed to walk through the park without kids at your own pace!

Guide Job

Job van Tol has a pleasant voice to listen to and can tell very entertaining stories. We both heard a lot of new, interesting information. It’s a very cool concept, going through ARTIS with a guide by app! Both of us have never been to ARTIS before and didn’t know what to expect. Since it was after regular opening hours and would be about nature in the city, we didn’t expect to see so many animals. Some of the animals may have already been in the indoor enclosures but between Job van Tol’s interesting explanations of all kinds of things we also enjoyed the lions, monkeys, elephants, giraffes, reptiles and so on. We should take our sons on one of those evening walks! Almost no people, no crowding in front of the fences…wonderful! By the way, I think our oldest sons would also be able to follow Job’s explanations very well.

Organic restaurant

At the Lions nearby, I already saw the announcement that there would be a botanical organic restaurant in the Greenhouse. As it turns out, that one opened recently. I enjoyed a delicious elderflower-strawberry-yogurt crumble there. Highly recommended! Delicious menu choices they have there. You can find this restaurant across from the penguins. Again, this was exactly half an hour after our coffee at the lions, and we were two-thirds of the way through the hike. Are the restaurants so well situated, is the app so well thought out, or are we walking so precisely on schedule? Either way: perfect!
There are more opportunities to have coffee or a bite to eat at ARTIS during the day, but if you can aim for a break at the penguins I would!

One-way

Everyone was walking the same route it seemed. I don’t know if it is a coincidence, as you are free to walk how and where you want. The buildings do have separate entrances and exits now because of the requirement of one-way traffic in times of corona. Those are the only places where it is clearly stated where you may or may not enter. There is no order to Job’s stories, though the points where Job tells something are situated in a logical order which is probably why everyone walks that way. Anyway, ideal and corona-proof. No oncoming traffic, no crowds, no crowds. Hugely relaxing and entertaining evening with hubby and heard lots of new things!

Evening walk extended due to success!

Due to success, the ARTIS evening walk has been extended to September 27. A time slot can be reserved on Thursday, Friday and Saturday. Highly recommended! As a couple, your child(ren), alone…. It’s all possible!