About a mile further west, on the edge of Forest Park, trendy shops, wine bars and c.1900 mansions line the leafy thoroughfares of the Central West End district. A few blocks away at 4431 Lindell Blvd, the Romanesque-Byzantine Cathedral of St Louis , referred to by locals as the New Cathedral, houses the world's largest collection of mosaic art (May-Sept daily 7am-7pm; Oct-April daily 7am-5pm; free).
The decision to put Forest Park four miles directly west of downtown (served by Metrolink every ten minutes) aroused much criticism during the 1870s, with opponents claiming that its inaccessibility would make it merely a pleasure ground for the local rich. It's larger than New York's Central Park, and every bit as full of attractions; in summer, the 12,000-seat amphitheater is regu-larly filled for the Broadway-style musical theater productions (June-Aug; tel 314/361-1900, ). Shuttle Bugs - bright-red buses with black spots - scurry around the park's roadways ($1.25 or free if you arrive on a metro/bus ticket).
Standing on Art Hill in the central western section of the park, the striking Beaux Arts St Louis Art Museum (Tues 1.30-8.30pm, Wed-Sun 10am-5pm; tours at 1.30pm; free), is the only surviving structure from the 1904 World's Fair. Its brief - to cover international art from prehistoric times onwards - may be ambitious, but none of the galleries can be considered as weak points or fillers. It houses one of the world's most extensive collections of German Expressionism , devoting an entire gallery to the powerful, spiraling and jagged images of Max Beckmann, and its pre-Columbian art works cover every significant style, medium and culture from Mexico to Peru.
In addition to the animals in its "cageless displays," the St Louis Zoo (daily 9am-5pm, in summer open until 8pm on Tues; free), set in beautiful grounds, boasts a "Living World" exhibit in which an animatronic robot of Charles Darwin gives synopses of his theories.
The main strengths of the History Museum , on the northern fringe of the park (Tues 9.30am-8.30pm, Wed-Sun 9.30am-5pm; free), are the thematic collections of old photos of St Louis, documenting river life, black music in the city and Charles Lindbergh's 1927 flight in the Spirit of St Louis (sponsored by the city's aircraft industry) from New York to Paris. The St Louis Science Center (winter daily 9am-5pm, Fri open until 9pm; summer daily 9am-6pm, Tues until 9pm; free) straddles I-64 and can be entered from either side of the freeway; use one of the radar guns on the covered access bridge to check the speed of cars on the freeway below. General admission is free, but it costs a few dollars a time to get into the planetarium, OMNIMAX Theater and other major exhibits.
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