My apologies for the lack of posts lately – I have been crazy busy the past few weeks, including last weekend! Luckily, it gave me some great blogging material that’s a little different from the usual…

My husband’s birthday was in April (remember the super naughty cookie pie I made for him?) and since he was studying until June, I wanted to give him something he could look forward to – so I presented him with a trip to St. Louis to see the Cardinals play!

He was very brave and let me plan out the entire weekend, which, shockingly enough, did not involve any shopping!

So we drove in on Thursday night and had 2 full days of being touristy – and of course, eating!

Our first evening, we stayed outside of downtown and chose a fabulous hotel. The Cheshire is a boutique hotel that is essentially diagonal from Forest Park (home of the St. Louis Zoo, the St. Louis Art Museum, a history museum, a boat house, tennis, etc.). The Cheshire is modeled to look like a traditional British inn, and from the very little time we spent there, I can tell you that the details and staff are amazing! All of the rooms pay tribute to a different British author (we were in the Elizabeth Barret Browning room) – and they even have amazing themed suites (the James Bond suite looks the coolest to me!) Even the lobby makes you feel like you’re in England!

Right up the road (maybe a 5 minute drive) is “The Loop” – a strip of restaurants and bars located near the beautiful Washington University. I know my husband’s love for pizza, so Thursday evening after we arrived we went straight to Pi Pizzeria for some deep dish pizza. We split a 9” and it was incredibly delicious – especially sitting outside on a beautiful evening and enjoying a nice cold draft beer.

After that, we wandered down the street and headed to the top of The Moonrise Hotel for a drink on their rooftop bar – which gave us a beautiful view of downtown St. Louis. There were a ton of other great places I’d love to have explored, but we had a very early morning ahead of us according to my very strict itinerary…

Early Friday morning, we headed to the St. Louis Zoo – which is pretty much amazing. It’s free admission – and we managed to hit Caribbean Cove in the first hour of operation so we didn’t have to pay the fee. You can pet the rays and sharks…but we chose to just observe!

We walked around and took in a lot of exhibits – and I have to say I absolutely loved the penguins! One species of penguin is outside – but then you walk inside into a very very cold corridor that has the Antarctic penguins. They are so beautiful – and it’s a nice reprieve from the heat!

We got to see hyenas being fed, two baby elephants playing in the water and a Daddy lion sleeping on the job while his two little kiddos played.

After that, we headed to “The Hill” – which is the Italian district of St. Louis. It’s about a 1 mile square that is full of amazing looking restaurants. I chose Zia’s – which was absolute perfection. A glass of wine for me, a beer for my husband – and of course, a delicious Italian sausage sandwich with peppers and tomato sauce. And the obligatory side of pasta..

Well, I will leave it there for now – but I will post Part 2 of our trip soon, which includes a trip to the Botanic Gardens, beer school at the brewery and of course, some baseball!

Hope you enjoy this little peek into our fabulous weekend trip – and I hope you all have a wonderful weekend!