What to See in Stuttgart - Top Sights and Attractions

Zoo and botanical gardens in huge park. Wilhelma is a zoological-botanical garden in Stuttgart in the Bad Cannstatt district in the north of the city on the grounds of a historic castle. Wilhelma Zoo is one of the most popular tourist destinations in Baden-Württemberg, seeing more than 2 million visitors annually.

The Zoo and Botanical Garden have been staffed since 1846. The Moorish Revival style echoing the Alhambra have been maintained and supplemented since 1960. Today, the zoo has an area of about 30 hectares (0.30 km2), houses around 11,500 animals from around the world composed of roughly 1,200 species and roughly 6000 plants from all climates. Of Germany's zoos, Wilhelma's collection ranks second to the Berlin Zoological Garden. In addition to the public garden, Wilhelma also has a branch office located in Fellbach, where the zoo keeps its stallions.

Wilhelma receives gorilla juveniles rejected by their mother and reared by the zookeepers. At age 2-3, the gorillas are sent back to their original zoo(s).^[2]

Ornate castle and home to state ministries. The New Palace is an 18th-century Baroque palace in Stuttgart and is one of the last large city palaces built in Southern Germany. The palace is located in the on the Schlossplatz in front of the Jubiläumssäule column and Königsbau. Public tours of the building are only permitted by special arrangement, as the building contains some government offices. Once a historic residence of the Kings of Württemberg, the New Palace derives its name from its commissioning by Duke Carl Eugen of Württemberg to replace the Old Castle in the early years of his reign. Originally, Charles commissioned Nikolaus Friedrich Thouret, but architects Leopold Retti, Philippe da la Guepière, Reinhard Heinrich Ferdinand Fischer would contribute to the design, history, and construction of the palace.

The palace was heavily bombed in World War II, leaving only a shell. It was finally agreed to rebuild it in 1957.^[4]

State park in Stuttgart, Germany. The Killesbergpark is an urban public park of half a square kilometre in Stuttgart, Germany. It is just north of the state capital, where Killesberg is a quarter of the borough of Stuttgart-Nord.

The park dates back to the horticultural show of 1939. Before the show, a large area of the park had been a quarry. It was transformed into a park with exhibition sites for the show, and has remained, hosting horticultural events on a regular basis, including the “Bundesgartenschau” and the IGA (Internationale Gartenbauausstellung), both garden festivals.

The Killesbergpark bordered for many years the city's fairgrounds. In 2007, Messe Stuttgart moved to new ground close to Stuttgart Airport.

Every July the park hosts the popular Lichterfest Stuttgart. Thousands of lanterns are placed around the park, decorating the park for a variety of family activities throughout. After dark, there is a fireworks show accompanied by music. Visitors often bring blankets to sit on for the show.^[8]

Schuttberg in Germany. The Birkenkopf is a prominent hill in Stuttgart, Germany. At an elevation of 511m, is almost 260m higher than city centre. It is in part a Schuttberg, an artificial hill built from the ruins and rubble from World War II.

During the war, 53 Allied bombing missions destroyed over 45% of Stuttgart, and nearly the entire city center. Between 1953 and 1957, 1.5 million cubic meters of rubble were cleared and moved to the hill, which resulted in an increase in height of around 40 meters. At the summit there are many recognizable facades from ruined buildings. The locals colloquially call the Birkenkopf "Monte Scherbelino", which roughly translates as "Mount Shards" but in an expression alluding to Italian. One of the pieces of rubble has a plaque attached to it, which says: Dieser Berg nach dem Zweiten Weltkrieg aufgetürmt aus den Trümmern der Stadt steht den Opfern zum Gedächtnis den Lebenden zur Mahnung. This translates roughly as: This mountain, after World War II piled up from the ruins of the city, stands as a memorial to the victims and a reminder to the living.

From the summit the whole city center can be seen, and on a clear day the view extends to the Swabian Alb, to the Black Forest, and the lowlands of Württemberg. On the summit there is a steel cross, which in 2003 replaced the original 1953 wooden cross. In the summer, early morning services are held here on Sundays.^[11]

Park in Stuttgart, Germany. The Rosenstein Park in Stuttgart is the largest English garden in southwest Germany. Its creation took place from 1824 to 1840 on the orders of King William I of Württemberg after plans of his gardener Johann Bosch on the former Kahlenstein area. From 1817 to 1818 King William I had purchased all land on the Kahlenstein from the citizens of Cannstatt.

In the middle of the park the Rosenstein Palace was built from 1822 to 1830. The Wilhelma zoo and the State Museum of Natural History Stuttgart are also located in the park. The Löwentor (Lion's Gate) at the upper park entrance was built by Giovanni Salucci. The Rosenstein Tunnel is a railway tunnel beneath the park.

Today the park is owned by the State of Baden-Württemberg and preserved as a historical monument. In conjunction with the Schlossgarten, the Leibfried Garden, the Wartberg and the Killesbergpark it forms Stuttgart's „Green U“. Because of the ban on hunting within the park it boasts 98.9 hares per 100 ha, the highest concentration of hares in Germany.^[17]

Square with fountains, column and gardens. Schlossplatz is the largest square in Stuttgart Mitte and home to the Neues Schloss which was built between 1746 and 1807. From its construction until the mid-1800s it was used as a military parade ground and not open to general public use. It stands next to two other popular squares in Stuttgart: Karlsplatz to the south and Schillerplatz to the south west. The Königstraße bisects the plaza from north to south.

The Neues Schloss Palace and grounds have been public property since 1918.

Along with much of Stuttgart Mitte, Neues Schloss was heavily damaged during the Allied Bombing of World War II and the building was restored from 1958-1964 with a modernized interior that houses the ministries of Culture and the Treasury for the government of Baden-Württemberg.

Until the 1960s the King Street that bisects the plaza carried auto and truck traffic. Since that time the Stuttgart underground has built an underground station and tunnels were built to redirect traffic away from the plaza and Königstraße.

The entire square was last fully renovated in 1977 to mark the staging of the Bundesgartenschau (State Garden Show) in Stuttgart. The lawns and flowerbeds were renewed in 2006 following the staging of the 2006 World Cup Finals.^[22]

Ethnological displays in 1911 building. The Linden Museum is an ethnological museum located in Stuttgart, Germany. The museum features cultural artifacts from around the world, including South and Southeast Asia, Africa, the Islamic world from the Near East to Pakistan, China and Japan, and artifacts from North and Latin America and Oceania.

The museum traces its origins to the collection of objects amassed by the Verein für Handelsgeographie (Association for Trade Geography) in the 19th century. The namesake of the museum is Karl Graf von Linden (1838–1910) who, as president of the Stuttgart Verein für Handelsgeographie, took an interest in assembling and organizing the collection, and invited explorers of the caliber of Sven Hedin and Roald Amundsen to Stuttgart.

In 1911, the collection was established as a private museum and its current building was constructed. After suffering extensive damage during World War II, the building was restored in the 1950s and the municipality became its custodian. Since 1973, the museum has been jointly administrated by the city of Stuttgart and the state of Baden-Württemberg.^[25]

Zuffenhausen is one of three northernmost boroughs of the city of Stuttgart, capital of the German state of Baden-Württemberg. The borough is primarily an incorporation of the formerly independent townships Zuffenhausen, Zazenhausen, Neuwirtshaus, and Rot, the latter is a historic town that gained importance in 1945 as a refugee camp for German refugees. As of 2009 around 35,000 people lived in Zuffenhausen's area of 1,200 ha, making it the third largest of Stuttgart's outer boroughs. Zuffenhausen is also one of the oldest continuously inhabited places in Stuttgart with evidence of permanent settlements that can be traced back 7,500 years.

The etymological roots of "Zuffenhausen" are assumed to be found in the name of a seventh century Alemanni settler "Uffo" or "Offo". The oldest known official denotation as a property of Bebenhausen Abbey by Pope Innocent III dates to May 18, 1204. Zuffenhausen was proclaimed a city in 1907, yet soon financially badly affected by the Great Depression, Zuffenhausen and later Zazenhausen, agreed to the incorporation into Stuttgart city on 1 April 1931.

Stuttgart-Zuffenhausen station on the Franconia Railway is served by lines S4, S5, S6 and S60 of the Stuttgart S-Bahn. The headquarters of Porsche and the Porsche Museum are located in Zuffenhausen. Stuttgart Neuwirtshaus (Porscheplatz) station is nearby and served by lines S6 and S60.^[31]

Weißenburgpark is a green space of about five hectares in the Stuttgart-Süd district of Bopser. On a hill in the park are the so-called Teahouse and the Marble Hall, which are now used as an excursion restaurant and a venue for events, respectively. The park itself is laid out with several walking paths and seating areas to linger.

At the highest point of the Weißenburgpark (about 370 meters above sea level) there is a viewing platform with a view of Stuttgart and with a memorial stone for the painter and graphic artist Reinhold Nägele. Despite the Bundesstraße 27 passing by a few meters below, it is pleasantly quiet in the park. There are a few parking spaces on Bopserwaldstraße at the foot of the park, and the park can be reached by tram lines 5, 6, 7 and 12 via the Bopser stop.

Skyscraper in Stuttgart, Germany. Tagblatt-Turm is a 61 m, the 16-storey skyscraper in Stuttgart, Baden-Württemberg, Germany.

The landmark Tagblatt-Turm was designed by architect Ernst Otto Oßwald, and is one of Germany's earliest high-rises, constructed between 1924 and 1928 and made from crushed stone and cement. Upon completion it was the tallest building in the city after the old 1905 city hall, and the highest office building in Germany. Its modern design caused controversy during construction, however, the building has since been recognized as a cultural and architectural landmark. The earliest high-rise office building erected from cement and steel was the Zeiss Building in Jena, built by the Dywidag company of Nuremberg in 1912 to house Zeiss' corporate headquarters.

From 1928 to 1943, the tower was the seat of the editorship and publishing house of the Stuttgarter Neues Tagblatt, a local newspaper; the building derives its name from this original tenant. After World War II until 1978, the tower served as the headquarters for the two newspapers Stuttgarter Zeitung and the Stuttgarter Nachrichten. In 2004, after extensive renovations, the tower was converted into a cultural center with several theatres under the name Kultur unterm Turm.^[34]