If you fancy a safari, but are not willing to go to Africa for one, a trip to Paris might just solve your problem. Your Charles de Gaulle airport shuttle can drop you off at Thoiry Park, a nature park one hour outside of the French capital, which offers the closest possible experience to a safari you will find in Europe.

Taking up 150 of the 380 acres of the Thoiry castle grounds, the park first opened to the public in 1968. Its 6.5km area is divided into two areas, dubbed the ‘African’ and ‘North American’ reserves. Each area contains animals typically found in the part of the world they are themed after, so visitors can count on seeing elephants, zebras and lions on the former and bears and buffalo on the latter.

The areas are only navigable by car, just like in a real safari, and visitors will find themselves right up close to most of the animals. A series of signs along the way also provide added information about each animal’s dimensions, habits and way of life, not unlike what you would find in a zoo enclosure. Guests who are lucky enough to be passing by during the animals’ feeding time will also be treated to a Q&A session with the handlers, where they can learn more about the animals first hand.

Overall, the park boasts 46 species of mammals, 26 species of birds, 9 types of reptiles and 10 types of invertebrates. There is also a petting zoo, a playground, and the ‘Talking Trees’, which rustle in the passing wind and make unusual sounds. The park is complete with a series of botanical gardens, where guests can unwind from the thrill of their safari experience before returning to their Charles de Gaulle airport shuttle. Like the safari park itself, these gardens are themed. Themes include autumn gardens, rose gardens, hedge mazes, English gardens, perfume gardens and an exclusively designed ‘parterre’ area, done in a typically French pattern.

The Thoiry Castle

The Thoiry Castle, where the zoological park is situated, was built in 1559 and is a marvel of Renaissance architecture. Its most curious feature is its parterre gardens, which form a sundial made to scale with the surrounding landscape. Visitors passing by on their Charles de Gaulle airport shuttle at sunrise or sundown may see the arch in the middle of the garden light up as the rays of light beat against it. The castle is still inhabited, and the same family has been in residence for 16 generations.

Thoiry Castle and the adjacent park are visited by roughly 450,000 people a year (in total, 20 million since its opening), and13,000 visitors each year are children. The site is the third most visited tourist spot in the Ile-de-France region, excluding Paris itself.