Farther west, in the Delmar Loop pocket near Washington University, are more music venues, including the Pageant and another, Blueberry Hill, that routinely has the legendary Chuck Berry (from St. Louis) duckwalking across its stage - the 82-year-old's next show is scheduled for July 15.

In very pleasant, successfully revived Soulard (this more a neighborhood than a pocket), home of the venerable Soulard Farmers Market (since 1843; "If you like crowds," says Steve Schweiger, who sells produce there, "Saturday's the day to come"), bars with music are peppered throughout. Just park the car and follow your ears.

Soulard is near the original and sprawling Anheuser-Busch Brewery, a true St. Louis landmark. Tours (free; www.budweisertours.com) are available, and refreshing.

One last music pocket, and then we'll get off this: The St. Louis Symphony Orchestra plays in Powell Symphony Hall, a grand converted movie palace across from another grand ex-movie palace, the Fox Theater, both on North Grand Avenue. The latter hosts concerts and touring Broadway shows. Together with other arts venues, they are the core of a pocket near St. Louis University called Grand Center - which is still waiting for some moneyed visionary to make it as commercially and aesthetically grand as it could be.

What else?

The most unmissable conventional museum in town for most people is the Museum of Westward Expansion, underground beneath the Arch. Along with telling a fascinating story, it's free and, more important, it's air-conditioned - and that's the last time we'll suggest that summer in St. Louis can tend toward the uncomfortable side, heat and humidity-wise.

(Riding up the Arch - fun, but not for claustrophobes or assorted other-phobes - and movies in the museum aren't free but aren't Disney-outrageous either. Information: 1-877-982-1410; www.gatewayarch.com.)

The funnest unconventional museum in town is City Museum. Kids love it because they can climb through and under and over things almost at will. Here's the kind of place this is: There's a baby grand piano out in the open without a "Do Not Play" sign. The museum's credo, says one worker, is "It's not art unless there's people on it." Among the exhibits: the world's largest underpants.

Adults will be fascinated by City Museum's salvaged architectural elements, including some by Louis Sullivan; they'll be just as fascinated by the sight and sound of kids of all ages and ethnicities actually having fun together at a so-called museum. Or they can leave the kids home. (314-231-2489; www.citymuseum.org.)

We're running out of space here, so, quickly: The Cathedral Basilica of St. Louis mixes elements of Venice's St. Mark's and (to these eyes) the Great Mosque at Cordoba and adds mosaics worthy of Ravenna - and if you're unfamiliar with those references, just know that this is one beauty of a church. The Old Courthouse, near the Arch, has links to the Dred Scott trials. The Griot Museum of Black History (formerly the Black World History Museum) has wax likenesses, the best of them of local great Miles Davis. Most interesting thing in the Missouri History Museum, in Forest Park, is the stuff on Charles Lindbergh. Also in Forest Park, the Muny Opera does Broadway shows under the stars, and the St. Louis Zoo is the nation's finest east of San Diego - and you might get an argument about San Diego.

Doesn't seem as much like a dying city, now, does it?

Two more essential neighborhoods: The Central West End, with restaurants and wine bars and galleries so slick you won't believe you're this close to either Kansas City; and the Hill, the Italian enclave (still) made famous by native son Joe Garagiola's stories about Yogi Berra and home to very good restaurants of the Garagiola-Berra persuasion - and as sure as Stan is "The Man," it's guaranteed the Fox announcers will make reference at some point during the All-Star Game to the Hill.

And finally, the Missouri Botanical Garden, which is the botanical garden certain to persuade even people bored by botanical gardens (like a certain travel writer) that not all botanical gardens are boring.

Add riverboat rides, casinos, and the Laclede's Landing entertainment district north of the Arch, and you get the idea.

On July 14, major-league baseball's All-Star Game will be played in Busch Stadium. (It's also Bastille Day, but never mind that now.)

On the Fourth of July, Fair St. Louis will proclaim its vitality with daylong music, all free, that ends with an 8 p.m. performance by Train, the San Francisco-based rock group.

Hundreds of thousands will be there, and you can be, too. Fireworks, as they did in a warm-up show the night before, will thump and whoosh and crackle and bang and dazzle.

Swagger - that American swagger - will happen.

And the river? The river will just keep rolling along.

If You Go