St. Louis: Something to Offer Everyone

The city is represented by the Gateway Arch. Opened in 1965, the Arch was built to honor President Thomas Jefferson and his vision of a continental United States, and is part of the Jefferson National Expansion Memorial. There are elevators to take you to the top of the Arch – a whopping 635 feet up! – which offers spectacular views of the area. Tickets are $10 per adult, $7 for youth and $3 for children. If you hold a National Park Passport, you can get a discounted admission of only $7 per adult. Other sites in the Memorial are the Museum of Westward Expansion, which chronicles the country at the time of the Lewis and Clark expedition, and the historic Old Courthouse, which is where the Dred Scott trials took place (a case which helped lead the U.S. to civil war).

About four miles west of the arch is Forest Park, dedicated in 1876. At 1,293 acres, it is approximately 500 acres larger than New York’s Central Park! The Park was the location for the 1904 World’s Fair (also known as The Louisiana Purchase Exposition, and the setting for the movie musical Meet Me In St. Louis). Nowadays, at Forest Park, you can find the St. Louis Zoo, St. Louis Art Museum, Missouri History Museum, Science Center and the Muny, America’s largest outdoor musical theater. It also serves as the location for the Shakespeare Festival of St. Louis and a sports center of sorts, with golf, tennis, baseball, biking, boating, fishing, ice skating, rollerblading, jogging, rugby... you name it!

Speaking of sports, if you are a sports fan, the city of St. Louis has got you covered. The St. Louis Cardinals play baseball at the beautiful and brand spanking new Busch Stadium downtown from April through October, the Super Bowl XXXIV champion St. Louis Rams pack the Edward Jones Dome from late August through December, and you can catch the Rams at their practice facility in Earth City during the late summer. The NHL’s St. Louis Blues bring hockey fans into the Savvis Center from October through April, and if you are into car racing you can find the St. Louis/Gateway International Raceway just across the Mississippi River in Illinois.

And what is watching a game without a cold beer? Anheuser-Busch offers free tours of the brewery’s World Headquarters seven days a week. The tour starts with a visit to the famous Clydesdales’ stables, heads inside to the Brew House then on to the packaging area before ending in the Hospitality Room. At the end of the tour, guests that are 21 and over can taste samples of Anheuser-Busch products and poke around in the gift shop. You can learn more about brewery tours at http://www.budweisertours.com/home.htm.