St.Louis: Religious Architecture

The day after visiting the art museum we headed up to Nauvoo for the wedding. Nauvoo is a little historic town right on the Mississippi River . The focal point of the town is the LDS temple set on a hill above the river. It is an exact replica of a temple built in the 1840s and destroyed in 1865. They tried to match the interior to the style of the 1800s with old rugs and period furniture (once again feeding my love of 19th century furniture). The most famous interior fixture however is the spiral staircase going from the 5th floor to the underground basement. All of the interior is beautiful, but it was hard to find decent pictures online and you aren't allowed to take any inside.

The day after the wedding we visited the Cahokia mounds, which are ancient American Indian mounds built in around 1100 AD. The largest mound was the about same height as one of the Aztec temples in Mexico & are the largest mounds north of Mexio. They were used as religious sites and housing sites for the wealthier classes - it was significantly cooler on top of the mounds. At its peak, Cahokia had a population of up to 40,000 (comparable in population size to London at the same time). And then they all disappeared, as seems to happen in the Americas. 

It was taller than it looks (approximately 10 stories tall).

We went from Cahokia to The Arch. While not technically a religious building it is a monument to American expansion, which we saw as our divine right so it is close enough. The museum in the basement had a excellent exhibit on the Lewis & Clark expedition, but I would not recommend the movie on the Arch's construction (made in the 1960s. I fell asleep).

We finished our tourism at the Basilica of St. Louis. My Catholic/Mormon neighbor dragged us there and I had to admit, it was worth it. It was beautiful - as beautiful as any cathedral I've seen in Europe. We did not have enough time to stay long, but I'm glad we got to see it. 

He is so excited!

All 4 of these sites really are architectural marvels and I'm glad I got to see them all in one trip!