The Tom Sawyer is pretty great. I once attended an all night dance party on it. Dancing on a boat is exciting.
Our riverfront actually has quite a few different ships than can be admired, entered, and enjoyed. None of them are really worth multiple visits for someone like myself though.
Plenty of cities have boats for tourists to climb around in. I entered my first submarine in Chicago at the Museum of Science and Industry. Later, I entered one in Surabaya, Indonesia. There's one at the Seoul War Museum. I feel like I've been in a dozen others as well. Those are all out of the water though. St. Louis needs one that's still actively using the water, like the Tom Sawyer. Like... a schooner I walked around on in Barcelona,
This schooner is moored in the marina near the end of La Rambla. It is part of the nearby Museu Marítim de Barcelona (Maritime Museum).
Being from the middle of a continent and having not seen the ocean until I was 21 or so, I'm amazed and afraid of the ocean. When I visit seaport cities, I usually see whatever I can. (Madrid's model ship Museum is a must see) NYC has several docked ships as well.
La Rambla is the obvious point of orientation fro Barcelona. Walking down it towards the water, you should see Columbus up on a post,
The museum is very near there.
Barcelona's Maritime Museum is housed inside a very old shipbuilding facility. I saw models while I was there of the city built by the Romans and Barcelona in the middle ages. That warehouse has pretty much always been there, and its use now as a museum is pretty fantastic.
a Spanish Galleon--full-sized and fully accessible.
It fits...
I would love to have a museum like Barcelona's in St. Louis. I know, we're an inland port, but we've got plenty of history too. We don't need a space as large as this. We could follow the lead of Melaka, for instance,
Melaka has a deep history of being attacked and conquered by sea. First came the Portugese, then the Dutch, then the English, then the Japanese, then the English again. This ship is a part of their maritime museum, which is in the building behind it. The ship alone though offers quite a lot of exhibit space inside.
Would a riverboat museum be silly in St. Louis? Are there already too many non-profits fighting donations? If we added tugboats and barges, we could get quite a flotilla going.
I like that satellite view of Barthelona (he-he). Fascinating to see how one can trace the outlines of the old walls in the streets which now replace them. The old City is just so dense. It looks like an abstract carpet, with the narrow medieval streets coursing through like capillaries.
ReplyDeleteIf St.Louis were to have a riverfront museum it would need small craft (e.g. canoes and keelboats) as well. Just as important would be riverine technology exhibits covering navigation, piers, levees, etc. And what about the trade web that fanned out from St.Louis ?
ReplyDeleteI would suggest you stay away from San Francisco. The plethora of museums in and near that city would tempt you to stretch a one week visit into a month's stay. Besides the Maritime Museum's classics there are also a couple of WW II ships - the Jeremiah O'Brian (Liberty ship) and the USS Pampanito (SS-383). The USS Hornet (CV-12) is across the bay in Alameda. A Wikipedia category link plus other links are below if you are curious.
Museum Ships in S.F., Calif.
USS Hornet (CV-12) Alameda (ferry+bus)
SS Red Oak Victory (Victory ship) Richmond
USS Potomac (AG-25) Oakland (ferry)