Old Cathedral, St. Louis vs St. Louis Cathedral Basilica
Two churches in St. Louis. Old Cathedral, St. Louis has no online ticket listed; St. Louis Cathedral Basilica has no online ticket listed. The table and the two notes below put them side by side; the full pages have what to see, the ticket and the timing for each.
Entry is free with a donation box. A small museum in the lower level covers the history of the parish and the French founding of St Louis and asks a token sum. Guided tours are given by volunteers after Sunday mass and by arrangement for groups. The basilica stands inside Gateway Arch National Park on the riverfront, five minutes from the Arch itself, and is the only building that survived the demolition of forty blocks in the 1930s to clear the site;
The cathedral is free to enter and stands in the Central West End, a couple of miles from the downtown arch and easily reached on the light rail. What you pay for, if anything, is the mosaic museum in the lower level and a docent tour, both inexpensive. Take the tour if one is running: the mosaic programme took most of the twentieth century and was made by several generations of artists, and a guide makes sense of which parts belong to which campaign.
