Toledo Zoo

Regularly named among the finest zoos in America, and unusually complete for a city of Toledo's size — more than ten thousand animals in a compact, walkable site of handsome 1930s stone and terracotta buildings raised by Depression-era work programmes.

Elephants, polar bears, gorillas, big cats and giraffes anchor the collection, alongside a modern aquarium with reef, freshwater and jellyfish galleries and an indoor rainforest. The Hippoquarium was the first exhibit anywhere to let visitors watch hippos underwater, and it remains oddly mesmerising.

In late November the entire zoo is strung with more than a million lights for Lights Before Christmas, one of the oldest and best-regarded festivals of its kind, when the paths fill with families and the old stone buildings glow in the cold.