While people of different generations and walks of life have visited the zoo at least once in their life, and some a lot more, not many know that there’s more to it than just the animals. In fact, there’s a secret world once you enter the door of the Citadel Grotto.
To get into the zoo, you pay EGP 5 for a ticket at the entrance. You need to walk towards the elephant enclosure to get the ticket that takes you inside the grotto garden. That ticket costs another EGP 10 and it has special operating hours that are different from the main ones of the park.
Passing through the gates, you first go through a cave similar to the one at the Aquarium Grotto Garden, but smaller. From there, you go through the small cave to emerge in the garden itself on the other side There are similar, but even smaller, caves inside the garden itself, and some steps that takes you up to get a better view of the garden from higher ground.
Inside the garden there are special collections of flowers and cactii, as well as a nice pond which is sadly less-well taken care of than the other ponds in the zoo.
The Citadel Grotto Garden is perfect if you want to steal away for a couple of hours in a small but charming park. It’s not normally very crowded, although you might want to consider not going on weekends or public holidays when the zoo gets very busy.
