Today I wanna tell you about a great plan we made las year, it's some kind of different than visiting landmarks, and it's in an interior province so, no beach...
If you have kids and they like dinousaurs or even if you like science, it's a place you have to visit.
Well, I'm gonna tell you about Dinópolis a dinosaurs themed park and also, museum.
In fact Dinopolis is a paleontologist foundation that studies the paleontological deposits found all over the province.
For that were created the main park in Teruel and also another 7 other small headquarters in various locations in the province where these paleontological remains have been found.
We had visited the main park previously but last year we visited all of them.
Why to visit all the headquarters of Dinópolis?
Well there are some reasons:
1st. each headquarter is about a different type of paleontological discovery: large dinosaurs, amber, stone forests, marine beings...
2nd. the smaller headquarters are more like a museum and you learn a lot in the visits.
3rd. just paying 3€ over the price of the ticket of the mail headquarter (Teruel) you have a ticket for all the headquarters (in the same season) so, with just one of the small headquarters you visit, you're saving money.
4th if you're in the zone you have a lot of plans made ;)
5th with the whole ticket the kids receive a workbook to look for answers during the visits.
What can I see in Dinópolis?
In Dinópolis Teruel, the main headquarter, you will see a lot of different things, there you have some attractions for kids, activities, shows and a big museum where you will see things like the laboratory they have to recover those fosils that are found in the province, and the exposition that is quite complete.
In Riodeva you may visit Titania, a museum dedicated to the gigantism in general and to the Turiasaurus in particular, the biggest dinosaur found in Europe that was found in the town.
In Peñarroya de Tastavins were found rests partially articulated of the Tastavinsaurus sanzi, one of the most complete sauropods of the Early Cretaceous and we may see them in Inhóspitak, along with its reconstruction of what the animal would be like, as well as an explanation of the process of locating and extracting the dinosaur remains.
In Galve we have Legendark, that also has its own dinosaur, that, in fact, it's the first that was described in Spain, el Aragosaurus ischiaticus.
And in the way back to the main road, you may visit the paleontological site of 'El Castellar' where have been found more than 400 dinosaur prints of different species fossiliced 145 million years ago...
If we go to Ariño we will may visit Valcaria and learn about the fossils extracted from the coal mines in the town, and specially from two dinosaur species discovered there: Europelta carbonensis and Proa valdearinnoensis. And also we will learn about rests of crocodiles and turtles found there.
Also, as an extra point, in a few meters from Valcaria, you may see dinosaur prints in the base of a rock wall.
Now let's go to Castellote, there you may visit Bosque Pétreo, which is focused on the study of Paleobotany, the science that studies the fossils of prehistoric plants, let's see, I am not going to lie you, this is not exciting, but if you have the combined ticket and it is handy, then it is a nice visit.
Also, there you may see how the man who discovered the first fossil of an iguanodon thought it should be.
In Albarracín it's Mar Nummus, and it's dedicated to sea fossils, because during de Jurassic era, Albarracin was under the sea as show the multiple fossils found in the area, in fact a great part of the ammonites collection have been donated by people that had them in their houses because they found them in the countryside. There you may also see crocodiles, sponges, brachiopods, bivalves, gastropods and echinoderms fossils, and also a specie of ammonites found in the town and called Albarracinites albarraciniensis.
And finally, in Rubielos de Mora you will find Región Ambarina, this headquarter is based on the rests of a Konservat-Lagerstätten, a fossilized lake. Here you may see the animals that get trapped in the lake bottom and get fossilized and those that were covered by resin from the big trees and were found in the interior of red amber.
As you may imagine the visit of all the parks needs time because they have long distances between some of then, but all of them are complementary, since they made a big review of the discoveries made in our province and also how they were and how we study them.
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