Hi, I'm James. And I'm Laurent.
And today, we're in St Louis.
Because of its strategic location,
at the confluence of the Mississippi and the Missouri Rivers,
St Louis has long been one of the largest cities in the U.S.
150 years ago, St Louis already had 300,000 people.
And at the time the city was bigger than Chicago, LA, or San Francisco.
And because of that long history, there are plenty of monuments to visit in St Louis.
And every year, 25 million visitors come to St Louis.
You'll find monuments, museums, parks, but also beer, shopping, sporting venues.
St Louis has a lot of variety. No matter what you're into.
And in this video, we'll show you our Top 10 favorite things to do in St Louis.
So, let's go!
Number 1 on our list is the Gateway Arch.
How could we have anything else on top of our list?
Going to St Louis and not seeing the arch,
would be like going to Paris and not seeing the Eiffel Tower.
The Gateway Arch was completed in 1965.
And ever since, it's been the most famous landmark in St Louis.
It is such an unusual building, with interesting angles, from any direction you look at it.
And it's right on the banks of the Mississippi River, in a beautiful park.
The arch is 630-ft tall. But it's also 630-ft wide.
So, it would fit in a perfect square.
The fact that it is just as wide as it is tall, is amazing to me.
It's really an optical illusion, because you could swear it is taller than it is wide.
It's covered in stainless steel. And the reflection
of the sun makes for tons of great pictures.
You can look at the arch and take pictures from the outside, which is free.
But we strongly recommend that you also visit the arch inside.
There is a museum that covers the history of St Louis,
and the westward expansion of the country.
But the best part of the visit is to go to the top of the arch.
To get there, you have to take an elevator, that kind of looks like a washing machine drum.
The engineering of the elevator is amazing.
It's part elevator, part escalator, and part Ferris Wheel.
If you're claustrophobic, the experience might be a bit overwhelming though.
Not to mention all the clickety sounds, kind like the way up on a roller coaster.
But from the top, you have spectacular views on St Louis, Missouri to the West.
And East St Louis, Illinois to the East.
The observation deck also has an interesting shape,
with a width of only 7-ft, and a ceiling height of even less than that.
If you're really tall, you may have to duck walking through the center.
The arch was a truly unique experience!
And Number 2 on our list is the Budweiser Brewery Experience.
We love visiting factories. And there is nothing more St Louis than Budweiser.
And, being French, I know a little something about frogs: Bud Weis Er.
The Anheuser-Busch Brewery Company opened in 1852.
But most of the factory buildings were built in the late 1800's.
They don't build ornate factories like that anymore.
And all the architectural details are amazing, when you think it's just a factory.
The hardware, the glass work, the tile work,
and all the sculptures of eagles throughout the whole site.
And one of our favorite parts of the visit were the horse stables.
The windows were made by Tiffany. And they still have Clydesdales today.
And the visit takes you through the whole brewing process,
that turns all the raw ingredients into the final beer you can buy at the grocery store.
These tanks here, each hold the equivalent of 600,000 cans of beer.
We also liked the bottling facilities, where 1,000's of bottles get filled up every minute.
Just the sheer size of the facilities is mind-blowing.
And at the end of the factory visit, you can go to the Biergarten.
And just relax and enjoy a good beer.
And buy all the Budweiser memorabilia you can imagine.
And Number 3 on our list is the Cathedral Basilica.
Yes, we transition directly from beer to church.
When we travel to Europe, to France, Italy, or Spain,
visiting churches and cathedrals is always a big part of our trip.
But in the U.S., it's rarely the case.
Because churches in the U.S. are newer and usually not that nice.
But the Cathedral Basilica in St Louis is the exception.
Pope John Paul II visited St Louis in 1999.
And said it was one of the most beautiful churches he had ever seen.
By the way, the Cathedral Basilica is not to be confused with the old cathedral,
which still exists today, and is located at the foot of the Gateway Arch.
The Cathedral Basilica was built in 1914, and its interior is covered in mosaics.
There is not a single square inch that is not decorated.
The mosaics cover 83,000 sq. ft, and are made of 41 million pieces.
Some of the mosaics in the side chapels were designed by Tiffany Studio.
And the stained glass window, above the main entrance, was also made by Tiffany.
Of course, a lot of the mosaics represent Jesus and the Saints, and have a biblical theme.
But if you look closely, you'll also see lots of scenes that are not necessarily religious.
Like, for example, this steamboat on the Mississippi River.
Or the Statue of Liberty, greeting immigrants at Ellis Island.
We spend an hour looking at all those mosaics, and barely scratched the surface.
And Number 4 on our list is Forest Park.
Forest Park is West of the city, too far to walk from the city center.
But it's easily accessible via the light rail.
The park is huge! It covers 1,300 acres,
which is almost twice the size of Central Park in New York.
You can spend a whole day at the park, because the park itself is beautiful.
But it also includes several of the top attractions
that we'll cover individually, later in this video.
Forest Park is home to the St Louis Zoo, the Art Museum,
the Science Center, and the Missouri History Museum.
Plus two golf courses, tennis courts, and a theater.
The park goes on and on. With a mix of woods, and lawns, and ponds.
It's a great place to go and ride your bike, or walk your dog.
And just like Central Park in New York, there is a boathouse in the middle,
where you can rent pedal boats or kayaks.
The park also has lots of wildlife, like this beautiful crane we saw while walking by.
And scattered throughout the park, there are lots of interesting buildings,
like this bandstand, in the middle of Pagoda Lake.
And the pavilion from the 1904 World's Fair, or even the visitor center.
Such a beautiful park!
And Number 5 on our list is the St Louis Art Museum: the SLAM!
And the SLAM is located right in the middle of Forest Park.
The museum was founded in 1879.
But the current building was built for the World's Fair in 1904.
And there is also a new wing, that was added in 2013.
And the museum is free, for everybody, all the time.
And over the last 140 years, the museum has acquired an incredible collection.
It has a little bit of everything: Egyptian antiquities, Asian art, Pre-Columbian art,
religious art, classical paintings, modern art, and also decorative arts.
The collection has a lot of breath, but not always a lot of depth, if that makes sense.
We especially liked the impressionist collection,
with paintings by Renoir, Gauguin, Van Gogh, and Matisse.
And there was a huge water lily painting by Monet.
The museum also has a great modern art section.
Contemporary art is always hit or miss for me. And the SLAM had a lot of hits.
This painting here looks like a map from the distance.
But when you look up close, it's all made of microchips.
They also have quite a few Picassos.
No matter what you're into, there'll be at least one or two sections you'll enjoy.
And Number 6 on our list is the St Louis Zoo.
The zoo is also located in Forest Park, right next to the Art Museum.
And the zoo is also free.
The St Louis Zoo has been around for more than 100 years.
And it has more than 18,000 animals. And all the animals you expect to see are there.
Tigers, lions, zebras, giraffes. But the most incredible section has to be the hippos.
There's a giant window, where you can see the hippos underwater.
And on the day when we film this video, they happened to be laying right against the window.
You can almost touch them. And they were huge!
And every zoo we go to, we always love to see the penguins.
They had several different species. And you could see them both on land and in the water.
The zoo is huge, with over 90 acres.
So, if you don't want to walk everywhere, you can ride the little train,
which stops at all the main attractions.
Another of our favorite sections was the turtle area.
These tortoises were gigantic, with the large ones weighing more than 200 lbs.
And talking about large animals, the zoo also has a large elephant area.
But there's so many species, that you could easily spend a whole afternoon there.
And we could have made this video an hour long.
And Number 7 on our list is Busch Stadium.
St Louis is a big sports town.
And the Cardinals have been the home team since 1900.
Of course you can go to see the Cardinals play at Busch Stadium, 81 days a year.
But you can also visit Busch Stadium year-round, even when there's no game on that day.
Busch Stadium is one of the newest ballparks. It was built in 2006.
And it's referred to as Busch Stadium 3, because it replaced two previous Busch stadiums.
The stadium is angled in such a way, that if you're behind home plate,
you have a beautiful view of the city skyline, with the arch in the background.
During the visit, you get to see the stadium, the seats, the concession stands,
just like if you were at a game, but you also get to see some of the luxury boxes,
with the World Series trophies that the Cardinals won.
You also get to see the boxes, where TV and radio announcers call the game.
And our favorite, was to go to the field, and hang around the Cardinals dugout.
Included in the tour, you also get to see the Cardinals Hall of Fame.
Exactly as you would expect, it has all kinds of Cardinals memorabilia:
Bats, jerseys, trophies. But our favorite was to see the 3D replicas
of the three different Busch stadiums.
But even if you don't enjoy baseball, you can always hang around the stadium.
They tried to recreate the urban feel of Wrigley Field, in Chicago.
And there's plenty of bars and restaurants that were built,
where Busch Stadium 2 used to be.
And Number 8 on our list is the Missouri Botanical Garden.
The botanical garden was built in 1859, by businessman Henry Shaw.
And it's sometimes referred to as Shaw's Garden.
It has more than 6 million plants. And it's the second largest in the country,
behind the New York Botanical Garden.
The Botanical Garden is located southwest of downtown St Louis.
And it's a little bit too far to walk there.
But once you're there, you'll have plenty of opportunities to walk,
because the garden expands over 79 acres.
If you like nature, there's plenty of variety, with a Japanese garden, a boxwood garden,
a Victorian garden, and a large dome, with a tropical garden
that makes you feel like you're in the middle of the jungle.
But the little pond, in the middle of the Japanese garden, was our favorite.
It was such a peaceful place, with such a perfect harmony.
And the pond has some of the biggest fish I have ever seen!
I wouldn't be swimming there, if I was a duckling.
Another section that was amazing, was the water lilies.
The ones that were floating, next to the dome, were the size of a coffee table.
They were the biggest lilies I've ever seen!
It looked like you could have a tea party in there, and lay your China right on the leaves.
A really nice garden all around!
And Number 9 on our list is the City Museum.
If you think the City Museum is going to be a boring museum,
about the history of the city of St Louis, you could not be more wrong.
It was not at all what I expected, based on the museum's name.
I guess 'bizarre' is the best word to describe the museum.
Or wild, or weird, or funky.
It's a completely unique museum.
And you have to see it for yourself, to understand what it's all about.
The city museum is a newer museum. It only opened in 1997, in an old shoe factory.
And everywhere you look, there is something new or unexpected.
It kind of reminded us of the Gaudi architecture, in Barcelona.
It's full of weird shapes, and hardware, and sculptures, and mosaics.
Just a hodgepodge of weird stuff.
You look at them and you always wonder: Who came up with that stuff?
And how many illegal drugs were involved?
There are tons of things to look at. But it's also an experiential museum.
That makes it a great place to visit with kids.
They can play and run around. It's almost like a giant playground.
There's a large indoor section. But there's also a large outdoor section.
With suspended bridges, an airplane, a castle, and even a school bus on the rooftop.
It's just a weird place, all around!
And number 10 on our list is the Citygarden Sculpture Park.
The Citygarden is located downtown,
on the other side of the Old Courthouse from the Gateway Arch.
That makes it easy to combine the two, into one visit.
And the Citygarden is yet another free attraction.
It's a small park that you can easily do in 1/2 hour.
And it's a little oasis, in the middle of the bustling city.
And we really liked the contrast, of nature and urban architecture intertwined.
But the main interest of the park, is the collection of sculptures.
They make for a lot of cool picture opportunities.
One of our favorites were the two white bunnies.
But we also liked the giant head. And the very joyful Pinocchio.
But there's plenty of other sculptures to enjoy. It's just a quaint little park.
If you enjoyed this video: Give it a big thumbs up!
And if you want to watch our other videos,
we're gonna put one right here. And another one right there.
Bye! Bye!