The tens of thousands of Germans who came to St Louis in the mid-eighteenth century settled mostly in the southside , which has retained a noticeable Teutonic influence. They were skilled brewers; only one of the breweries they opened from the 1850s onwards still stands, but it does happen to be the largest in the world. The Anheuser-Busch plant , at 12th and Lynch streets (summer Mon-Sat 9am-5pm, Sun 11.30am-5pm; winter 9am-4pm, Sun 11.30-1pm; free), produces a sizeable proportion of the company's 14.3 million barrels of beer each year, including Budweiser and Michelob. The buildings themselves are architecturally interesting: over one hundred intricate redbrick structures. The free eighty-minute tours are mostly company PR, but they're still good fun, and you get two glasses of the company product at the end, before you're shunted into the gift shop.

A few blocks towards downtown, the colorful Soulard Market (Wed-Fri 8am-5.30pm, Sat 6am-5.30pm), at Broadway and Lafayette Avenue, is a great place to pick up picnic items and fresh fruit, especially on a Saturday. The terraced streets behind it hold the city's best blues and jazz pubs.

Red-, white-and-green fire hydrants let you know that you're in the thirty-square-block Hill district , a small, neat Italian community three miles east of Soulard. At its heart, St Ambrose Church displays a statue of Italian immigrants; all around, the aroma of freshly baked bread drifts out of the small specialty bakeries that share the area with one-room grocery stores and dozens of restaurants.

Just east of the Hill District at 4344 Shaw Blvd, the 79-acre Missouri Botanical Garden (9am-5pm daily, summer also Mon 9am-8pm; $7) is a haven of peace and tranquility, just a few hundred yards from busy I-44. The grounds contain everything from a magnificent Japanese garden through scented rose and English woodland gardens to the Climatron, a huge greenhouse that re-creates a tropical rainforest complete with waterfalls and cliffs.

Southside

• Southside

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