The garden is small — you can walk around it in 10 minutes if you move fast. But that would be to miss everything. The idea is to slow down, to stop, to let the butterflies come. Wear colorful clothes (especially red and yellow) and they will land on you — children become statues for the first time in their lives. The breeding laboratory, visible through glass, shows chrysalises at different stages of development. Chrysalises arrive from the Philippines, Malaysia, Costa Rica, Belize and Kenya, raised in captivity (never captured in the wild). With luck, you will witness a butterfly emerging — first flight, wings still wet, before your eyes.
The two parrots living in the garden (no, they don't eat the butterflies — guides answer this question 50 times a day). The fish in the pools between tropical plants. The land tortoises wandering on the ground between visitors' feet. And most of all: the plants. Bali, Costa Rica, Thailand — dozens of rare tropical species imported because each butterfly species needs its specific host plant to lay eggs and feed its caterpillars. The botanical garden is almost as interesting as the butterflies themselves.