Wilhelma

Flamingos at the Wilhelma zoo and botanical gardens in Stuttgart.

Stuttgart's stately zoo & botanical gardens were built for the pleasure of the Kaiser, but can now be enjoyed by all

A gorilla in the new ape house at Wilhelma.

King Wilhelm I of Württemberg had these pleasure grounds and botanical gardens laid out in a Moorish style in 1842.

Upon his death in 1880, they were opened to the public and, after World War II, animals were brought in and zoo exhibits installed in and around the carefully tended gardens and greenhouses.

A bit ambitiously called the "Alhambra on the Neckar" for the lovely little faux- Moorish buildings and water gardens scattered around the 74 acres, the Wilhelma is now home to more than 7,000 species of plant and flower and 1,000 species of animal.

In many cases, the animals have been fit right into the botanical garden scenes. A small pond near the entrance flaps with dozens of great blue herons and a stand of pink flamingos—all of which have the run of the zoo and can be seen flitting from tree to tree.

Storks nest atop the steeple of one building, while giant pink pelicans swan up and down the waters of a Arab-style water garden. (As my six-year-old and I came down a staircase and turned a corner in the terraced gardens, we startled a free-range peacock who nearly took out my son with his oversized tail as he spun around to strut the other way.)

Maybe it was just when I visited, but there was a profusion of irresistibly adorable baby animals: seal pups, storklings, knobby-kneed giraffe calves, and baby bonobos.

The new ape house, opened in May 2013, is particularly worthwhile, an expansive and very intriguing playground for a tribe of Chimpanzee-like bonobos—a baker's dozen of apes and their children—and a clan of eight gorillas, plus four more babes in the "gorilla kindergarten."

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