St. Louis Redux
I awoke Saturday morning with visions of the German Biergarten in my head, of tubas and oooom-pahs, drinking microbrews under the St. Louis sun. That was our plan in Hermann, Mo., a little German enclave about sixty miles outside of St. Louis. Mark had read about this in a tour book, so you know it's got to be true, but alas when we arrived there was only a one-man jazzman at a local winery. Reports of tubas in Hermann were greatly exaggerated.
I shrugged this disappointment off with the help of some wine tasting and later lunch, where I told Anna Marie, who had never had Muenster cheese before, that this is a special "Hermann Muenster" cheese. (Insert groan here). I tried the sampler platter - knackwurst, sauerbraten and something else - and it was surprisingly good given my low expectations. My ancestors in Germany and Ireland didn't always eat well, but they certainly drank well. The German biers and Irish stout are second to none.
We visited the wine cellar, deliciously medieval, filled with the musty fog of fermenting grape. A labyrinth of cavernous arches, I agilely scaled one wall to reach an opening to see a view - of more small cubbys where bones lay in mouldering heaps, at least in my imagination. We came to a sign that said, "No Visitors Past This Point" and walked past the sign, in verboten territory, for photo purposes. We are so jejune.
No one wanted to listen to the jazzman play in the 100 degree heat, so we visited the local Catholic Church up on the hill and absorbed the beautiful stained glass windows depicting the spiritual and corporal works of mercy (such as St. Elizabeth of Hungary feeding the hungry). There was also a representation of St. Louis himself, which I made a point of reading up on since my knowledge of the 13th century Crusader & king was vague.
Saturday night we went to the Irish pub in town, McGurk's, and the food (Gaelic steak) was surprisingly good. In fact it was more restaurant than pub. Sunday morning we arrived at St. Louis Cathedral early and gawked at the spectacular mosaics.
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