The Arch is only the beginning in St. Louis

I’ve seen the Sistine Chapel in Rome, the gold-encrusted Church of Santo Domingo de Guzmán in Oaxaca and Notre Dame in Paris, among many other churches all over the world, but none took my breath away like the Cathedral Basilica of St. Louis.

My tour of this spectacular gem was recent, but, through the years, others have made similar assessments: Pope John Paul II visited in 1999 and said it was one of the most beautiful churches he’d ever seen.

Recent headlines often highlight the city’s problems with urban decay, so I was surprised that St. Louis had such a treasure — and captivated by how many others were easily found in its red-bricked areas and other environs.

Before my visit, I knew little of St. Louis beyond its “Gateway to the West” nickname and iconic Gateway Arch, which is celebrating its 50th anniversary this year. The mind-boggling sculpture, 630 feet high, remains the tallest man-made monument in the United States and does a commanding job of celebrating the city’s history as a traveling hub for pioneers migrating west during the 1800s.

Marketing officials are quick to boast that there are more free attractions here than anywhere else in the nation, outside of Washington, D.C., and to be sure, there are plenty. Many of St. Louis’ tourist sites date to the 1904 World’s Fair, which took place in the city’s magnificent Forest Park — perhaps you didn’t know that it is 500 acres larger than New York’s Central Park.

In the so-called quilt of neighborhoods, cuisine is colorful and diverse, so arrive hungry. From the Italian food of The Hill, to the German restaurants of Hermann, to the down-home Southern barbecue (with a locally produced Fitz’s root beer, of course), St. Louis is renowned.

With recent history and growing reports of urban decay threatening its image, visitors are sure to be both delighted and relieved to find that the area seems well-integrated and safe, as well as progressive and sophisticated, with streets lined with lovely homes in a variety of architectural styles — the lushness of their dense green woods and pretty rock gardens easily attributed to being in the basins of both the Missouri and Mississippi rivers.

In the city and beyond

Tourist attractions run the gamut. There’s the Old Courthouse, one of the city’s most prominent historic landmarks, now run by the National Park Service. This was where the famed Dred Scott anti-slavery case was argued in 1847 and 1850, hastening the start of the Civil War. It is also where Ulysses S. Grant freed his only slave, and where young Samuel Clemens (before he became Mark Twain) got his steamboat pilot’s license.

I challenge anyone to find a weirder, more whimsical place than the humbly named City Museum — a hard-to-describe place that gives the fictional Willy Wonka’s chocolate factory a run for its money in the wacky department.

Spanning 600,000 square feet in a former International Shoe Co. factory, the building is now a funhouse of sorts, home to a disparate assortment of discarded construction materials and architectural remnants that range from gargoyles and giant sea creatures to fantastical mosaic floors, spinning chairs and an insect display.

For me, highlights included sliding down the highest of a wildly configured assortment of tubing and chutes stretching up to 10 stories high, and the real yellow school bus hanging precariously (but actually stable) on the edge of the roof, adjacent to a huge rooftop Ferris wheel. Why not? It’s easy to find your inner child in the City Museum, a creation of a mad genius, the late Bob Cassilly.

The city boasts a top-notch zoo (and admission is free), the spectacular 79-acre Missouri Botanical Garden, the renowned Saint Louis Art Museum and a selection of delightful day trips to nearby places like historic St. Charles, originally settled in 1769 by French Canadian fur traders and dubbed Les Petites Cotes (The Little Hills).

Just 25 minutes from downtown St. Louis, St. Charles is adorned with red brick-paved streets and beautifully maintained historic homes. Just a block or two from the Missouri River, the streets are lined with independent shops and restaurants, flower-bedecked parks and patios.

St. Charles is also where the 237-mile scenic Katy Trail begins. More than half the trail follows Lewis and Clark’s path up the Missouri — it’s popular for hiking, running or bicycling (with rental bikes from the Bike Stop Café, which also offers delicious healthy breakfasts and lunches). Its Christmas festival is renowned for its many street performers in costume.

But back to my favorite — the Cathedral Basilica. This gem’s Romanesque exterior was built in seven years, between 1907 and 1914, but the Byzantine interior took seven decades to complete, with 20 artists and a multitude of workers putting their mark on it.

The intricate adornments include 41.5 million mosaic tiles filling 83,000 square feet and placed specifically to reflect the sunlight coming through the stained-glass windows and the sparkle of 38 shades of gold.

It’s more than nine stories high, with a dizzying number of domes, one of the largest collections of mosaics in the Western Hemisphere, one of the largest pipe organs in the nation, and stained glass by Louis Tiffany and Emil Frei & Associates of St. Louis.

Our witty guide offered the opinion that the light is best from late October to mid-February — but any time of the year, the basilica is exquisite.

An evening concert series with performances starting in November (www.cathedralconcerts.org) takes advantage of the superb acoustics with such world-class performers as the Vienna Boys Choir (Nov. 21) and Nathan Laube (Jan. 31, 2016).

This story was originally published June 24, 2015 at 11:45 AM with the headline "The Arch is only the beginning in St. Louis."