The Gardens of St. Charles

On Wednesday's Travel Post I shared about our visit to St. Charles, Missouri and I mentioned in that post that I would do a separate post of their beautiful gardens.  St. Charles had gorgeous flower gardens, pots, and baskets everywhere I looked!  But perhaps my favorite place in St. Charles for flowers was "The Conservatory Garden Wedding Venue" :  A Garden House for Weddings.

We discovered this magical place when we spotted this beautiful bed of roses.  My husband beckoned me to go inside the garden gate but I was leery of it being a private garden.  He reassured me that it must be a public space, so I cautiously went inside and I was immediately mesmerized by it's serene beauty.

It was a lovely shade garden, filled with colorful and interesting foliage.  The garden beds were separated by a beautiful brick lined path.

There were so many interesting trees and shrubs like the one below.

My husband thought this was one of the most well done gardens he had ever seen, I couldn't agree more.  It was a textbook example of a perfect shade garden.  It provided tall, mid-size, and small trees along with all different colors of foliage to provide color even if nothing was in bloom.  We absolutely loved the lamp posts too!

I love the smaller height and texture Japanese Maples provide in a garden.  I wish we could grow them in Zone 4.

I had so much fun exploring all the little nooks and crannies of this small city garden.  Little did I know the best was yet to come beyond the trellis gate!

At the entrance to the garden was a smaller garden with a brick house and a greenhouse. 

Inside the greenhouse was the most beautiful wedding chapel I ever saw!

Can you believe these decorations?  They draped yards of tulle from the ceiling and created live plant garlands with moss, ivy, and ferns.  They even added beautiful candle chandeliers!

I would have loved to have seen these decorations before my own daughter's wedding!  I could have copied these ideas!

This is the street view of the wedding greenhouse.  Isn't it just stunning?  I love the doorway!

 Even the ivy climbing the Conservatory's main building was perfect!  There were rooms for the bride and groom with outdoor access to the gardens in this building.

 

 Even though The Conservatory was our favorite garden spot in St. Charles, we still saw so many other beautiful plants, flowers, and courtyard gardens during our visit.

I liked all these blue conifers growing so close to the brick building.  The owner must really really keep them trimmed to keep them from overgrowing this small space.  Wrought iron fences were a common sight in St. Charles as well as roses!

But flowers weren't the only natural objects adorning the streets of St. Charles.  We also spotted this bird and nest right above the door of a business!  The owner said she has been nesting here for five years!

  There was a small park with a gazebo located right on main street.

My favorite homes in St. Charles were the tiny ones like this.  We saw so many adorable tiny homes in St. Charles (along with large, grand ones as well).  This tiny house had a beautiful and very large front garden.

I sure wouldn't mind living in this little house, would you?

Have a Great Day!  Amy

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St. Charles, Missouri

My husband and I just returned home from an 11 day road trip to Missouri.  He has family there that he hasn't seen in about five years, so that was the main reason for the trip;  but as always, we made an adventure out of a single occasion!

We started our trip Labour Day weekend.  We went to Chicago on Saturday to spend the weekend with our children and new grand baby!  You will all be happy to know that Alethea has outgrown her colic phase and is doing much better.  And yes, we did another "Grandma and Me" photo shoot which I plan on showing you next month.

On Sunday afternoon, after church and lunch we drove to St. Charles, Missouri.  We arrived around 5:30 p.m. as it was only a four and a half hour drive.   We had a disastrous time checking into our hotel (it's too long of a story and I don't want to bore you with the details), so there wasn't much time left in the evening to do anything other than to get dinner and then go to bed.  

The next morning was a new day, so we put the problems of the hotel check-in behind us and set off for St. Charles!  It was a gorgeous, though hot and sunny day.

St. Charles was founded in 1789 by a French Fur Trader.  It is the third oldest city in Missouri and the historic area still retains it's old world charm with brick sidewalks and roads, and gorgeous historic buildings.

The majority of the historic village is housed on main street which comprises about 15 city blocks.  Because everything is on one straight street, it makes navigation pretty easy...no twists or turns to get lost or confused.  Behind Main Street is Frontier Park and the Missouri River.  You can see it from Main Street when you look in-between the buildings.  It looked so pretty, but unfortunately, it took us all day just to walk the shops on Main Street, so we never made it over to the river.  But no worries:  I loved St. Charles so much, and it's so close to where my children live, that I hope to get back and explore more.

The charm and beauty of St. Charles was over-whelming.   The historic buildings and homes, the brick lined side walks and roads, and the lanterns all made the area so beautiful to behold.  I was smitten.  My favorite part was that many of the stores were actually old homes, so when I went inside I wasn't just looking at products, but the interior of a gorgeous old home as well!

We were there on Labor Day so some of the businesses were closed.  At first I was disappointed, but honestly, there were so many stores, we wouldn't have had time to visit them all anyway.  We were upset that the First State Capitol Museums and Foundry Art Centre were closed...but now we have a good excuse to go back!

A sweet lady offered to take our picture.  I love it when people do that!  My husband is the photographer in our family, so most of our vacation photos are just of me.  It's nice to get a picture of the both of us once in awhile.

This picture was taken outside a antique store.  I'm not interested in antiques anymore, as my taste has grown more modern as I age, but I loved this store because it was a large old house.  I loved looking at the old house more than the antiques.  They even had another store in the basement.

My husband snapped this picture of me checking out one of these old homes.  See...isn't the architecture more interesting than the stuff inside?  

My husband was so excited to go to Grandma's Cookies when he saw it on the map.  But we both were actually very disappointed in the cookies.  They were o.k., but nothing exceptional.  We only ate one of the three cookies we purchased. They only cost 70 cents each, so it's not like we wasted a lot of money.  The peanut butter chocolate chip was our favorite if you decide to try it anyway!  It is a cute shop, and it's worth stepping in and checking it out!

This is the peanut butter cookie on the left and the chocolate chip on the right.  I never got a picture of our favorite cookie...the peanut butter chocolate chip...as we devoured it too quickly.  These two we took one or two bites of, then tossed them.

This is St. Charles Borromeo Church.  It has been reconstructed. It was originally built on this site in 1789.

There was such an eclectic mix of old buildings...all different types of stones and bricks, and many log ones as well.

There were many restaurants to choose from, most of them offered outdoor seating like the rooftop seating in this one.  Sorry, but I can't recommend a restaurant.  We never ate lunch because we had a huge breakfast and just kept snacking on other things (like cookies!) through out the day.

This Dry Goods and Hardware Store was the first State Capitol of Missouri.  The downstairs was the store, but the Senate and House of Representatives met upstairs.  It was closed when we were there, but we walked behind the building and up the stairs and peeked in the windows!

This is the back of the building.  We were able to see quite a lot by just peeking in the windows!

Behind the State Capitol was a large fenced-in yard that looks like it is used as an educational space with a garden, water cistern, and a log building.  We walked around the yard and checked out the garden getting some tips for our yard.  We were unable to go into the log building structure so I'm not quite sure what that was.  Do any of my readers know?  If so, tell me in the comment section below.

This is the garden.  We liked the raised beds and how they put chicken wire on the lower portion to keep the bunnies out.  Not sure how well it would work for deer though!

There were so many beautiful homes and gardens in St. Charles.  I will be doing a special post on the flowers of St. Charles on Sunday's Gardening Post.

This store use to be an old garage and I think either a stable or an old blacksmith shop?  I asked, but I don't remember what the sales clerk said.  We just found the store so interesting because it had garage doors, brick floors, and open beams.  I do remember she said the floors use to be earth and they added the bricks when it was turned into a garage.

There is a free trolley that you can pick up at the Visitor's Center.  We didn't take the ride this time due to lack of time...but maybe if we visit again we will!

Another cute house turned into a store.

There were so many outdoor cafes to choose from!

I don't know if it was because my husband and I are not use to Missouri heat what, but I couldn't get enough to drink that day!  I bought a bottle water, bottled tea, and I enjoyed a raspberry phosphate at this old Soda Fountain!  I love phosphates!  Why do they taste so much better than regular bottled soda?

If you follow me on Instagram, you may have seen this picture.  Oh, this drink was so delicious!

I thought this sign was so cute and interesting I had to check it out.  However, I didn't find the shop that cute or interesting...but the sign certainly was!

How fun to spot this old car in front of this cute little old house.  It's not that much bigger than the car!

This little courtyard in-between shops was so cute...and hysterical!  Look at all the husbands napping in the rocking chairs while their wives shopped.  Ha-ha!  And my hubby was one of them!

Like I said earlier, there was quite the assortment of structures in St. Charles.  I love this little wooden house.

If you love historic towns and homes, you will love St. Charles!  I can't wait to go back and see everything I missed...but this time I will choose a different hotel!

Have a Great Day!  Amy

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St. Charles, Illinois

This is a continuation of a series of travel posts of a week I spent in Illinois to visit my children.  To start at the beginning go HERE.  The rest of the posts are HERE, HERE,  and HERE.

The third day of my vacation to Illinois was a very special one because it was the day I accompanied my daughter and her husband to find out the sex of my first grandchild (It is a GIRL for those who may not already know! 😊).   The appointment was only suppose to take an hour but ended up taking most of the morning instead.  Since the majority of our day was taken up at the doctors office, we only had a few hours to spend sight seeing.  We decided to go to St.Charles because it was nearby and my son had previously visited and said it was beautiful.

St. Charles, like Geneva which we had visited a few days before, is located on the beautiful Fox River.   There isn't as much to do there as there is in Geneva (at least I didn't think so based on the short time we were there), but it is very pretty.  I would love to see it at night, because that is when my son visited.  He said the bridge was all lit up and it was just gorgeous.  Maybe someday I'll get back there to see that!

One of St. Charles popular attractions is the old historic hotel:  The Hotel Baker.  It is located right on the Fox River and has amazing architecture both inside and out.

We didn't get to see any rooms, but they let us snoop around the lobby a bit and take a peek at the reception hall.  I love this curved wall and doors.

There was an iron rail balcony above the doors.

How about these elevator doors?  They look like something out of an old movie.

 Every nook and cranny of this beautiful hotel was filled with exquisite detail.  I love the tile walls and stairs and the curved banister.

This is the hotel reception desk.  I love that they still have the old mail slots on the wall.  They could probably film a period movie here since so much is unchanged from when it was first built.

This is the reception hall.  Can you imagine having a wedding here?  Wow!  You wouldn't need to spend much on decorations...they are already here!

My daughter and I are both peacock lovers and we noticed immediately the gorgeous peacock stain glass on the hotel entrance.

Like Geneva, St. Charles had a beautiful bridge over-looking the Fox River.   The stunning building pictured below is the St. Charles Municipal Building and Plaza.  It was constructed in 1940 and is made of White Georgia Marble.  The tower is 84 feet tall.

Similar to Geneva, they also had a river walk and trails, but we didn't go on them.  We definitely need to go back another time to explore this area more in-depth.

And here is my smiling, happy pregnant daughter!

We did walk about a bit on main street to check out the shops and old architecture.  We loved this old movie theater!

And like most historic old towns they are filled with beautiful historic old homes like this one.  I love the stone work!

We found another old hotel on the main street, but it isn't used as a hotel anymore.

A cute candy and antique store.  We didn't go inside, so I can't tell you if the fudge was any good!

I LOVED this old gas station turned into a restaurant.  What a cute idea!  We should have had lunch here.  Instead we went to Culver's because my kids are both gluten-free and they have gluten-free buns there.  Maybe another time.

I snapped this view as I was walking across the street.  Overall, I didn't find as many interesting shops in St. Charles as they had in Geneva.  However, when I look on their website there looks like there is a lot more to do there then what first meets the eye.  I think if I ever get the chance to go back there (and I probably will since my kids live nearby), I will have to do a bit of homework first so I can plan my trip better.

Have any of you ever been to St. Charles, Illinois before?  What would you recommend doing or seeing?  I'd love to hear from you!

Have a Great Day!  Amy

Linking Up with these Fabulous Blogs HERE.
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