High and low culture in St. Louis

There were only two things in St. Louis that we had decided that we must do while there and that was the arch and the basilica.  With the arch under our belts, we drove out to the basilica of St. Louis.  Pope John Paul II consecrated it in 1996 and it has more mosaics than any church in the world. 

And every inch was covered in tiles.  It was done mainly in Byzantine style with the glassy, gilt tiles that sparkled and I have to say that our wonderful camera did not do it justice. 

There were tiles in between parts of pillars, there were tiles on rails of the altar, there were tiles on statues that were made for this church.  It was a small bit of overkill and it felt like the people who built this church were actively competing with St. Marks in Venice, but it is still stunning. 

There was ornate stone work, so Jeri would love it, but even the stone work had to have mosaic boarders.  We lit a candle for Florence like we do in every cathredal we have visited and mainly just walked around with our head ups and our jaws dropped.

A couple of the side chapels had Italianate style mosaics which create a more matte finish and look softer.  The one thing that this basilica had over all the ones in Europe was a little museum downstairs that showed you the incredible amount of work and time that went in to creating, putting up, designing, and upkeep of the mosaics.  I would not know any of this information about styles without this little museum and I had a better appreciation for ones that I had seen in Europe for this reason.

If you can't make it to Europe because of budget reasons, make it to St. Louis because they have great architecture, great food (or so I've heard), and a monument that has to be seen in one's lifetime.  So, this was our brush with high culture and only John and I would leave this beautiful basilica to

cut across the city at rush hour to go race go karts in order to get ready for a trip to Indy.  John became addicted to this last year and lapped me three times in the 12 laps that we did.  I'm a fast driver, but that appears to only be in my own car and on real roads, so I won't be beating John anytime soon.

After getting my ass handed to me in a kart, it's off to the Scott Trade center where John was able to swallow his dislike of the St. Louis Blues enough to take in a final hockey game of the season in person.  John's Atlanta Flames jersey garnered a lot of attention in St. Louis strangely enough, but we didn't want to be partial against the home team and didn't care who won.  

 

We just enjoyed the game and a town that supports it's team avidly while not winning a single cup since it's inception.  The Blues clinched their place in the playoffs with this win against the Avalanche and we went back to the hotel where again, food became the issue.  A late night pizza delivered to the hotel was the answer and, again, not on the diet, which appears to be the hardest thing for us to do while traveling.