Tucked away in the Missouri River valley, Hermann is a picture book village where clock towers and church steeples rise above sturdy red-brick buildings from the last century.

Hermann was founded in 1836 by German immigrants who dreamed of building a New World utopia that would be “German in every particular.” Their scouts selected a site on the Missouri River that reminded them of their beloved Rhine Valley.

Finding the steep terrain unsuitable for farming, the Germans covered the hillsides with vineyards and began making wine. They were wildly successful. In its glory days, Hermann boasted the second largest winery in the country and produced more than one million gallons of wine a year.

Prohibition, coupled with wartime anti-German sentiment, dealt the town an economic blow from which it never fully recovered. The only saving grace was that the town's 19th-century buildings remained untouched by post-war modernization.

Today, visitors enjoy sampling award-winning wines at seven area wineries, strolling the historic district, browsing quaint shops and galleries and just relaxing as they watch the Missouri River roll by . . . or could that really be the Rhine?

The Rhineland Wurstjaeger Dancers perform at many Hermann festivals.