The City Zoo is very different from most zoos I've ever been to before (although this isn't many!). Some of the buildings are amazing (Elephant House and Kos Aviary), and you can walk through some of the enclosures and get close to the animals. There are still many of the larger, traditional animals that you don't find in British zoos these days, but this is for a reason. Many of the animals looked very bored, and in some cases, somewhat stressed.
The first walk-through area we came across (near the penguins) was a large enclosure covered in netting, and high up in the tree was a vulture. I've kept birds myself, but I'm afraid a vulture was a little too much for me! However, the Kos Aviary was excellent--a tropical bird aviary that was like walking through a rainforest. There were a lot of Australian animals throughout the zoo, some quite rare, and some, like the wallabies, in areas you could walk through and get close to them.
When we got to the larger animal cages, you started to realise how bored and stressed they were. Some of them had clumps of fur missing, and some paced their cages or stood swaying their heads from side to side. The chimps, monkeys, and gorillas were kept in very bare concrete houses with little to occupy them. The gorillas were the saddest because they looked so human; it was almost as though you could see the emotion in their eyes.
The greyness of the winter may well have made the zoo seem even more oppressive. But by the time I left, the whole experience had left me feeling very depressed.