Louisville, Kentucky: Much More Than the Derby

When you think of Louisville, Kentucky, you probably think horses and bourbon, but the city has a great deal to offer the traveler at any time of year – not just during the Kentucky Derby. You might be surprised to learn that it’s a large metropolitan city with a long tradition of supporting the arts. It has its own award-winning orchestra, opera, and ballet companies, as well as one of the country’s top regional theatres, Actors Theater of Louisville.

Then, there’s visual art. Downtown has many art galleries, and you can walk from one to the other. A favorite with fine art photography is the Paul Paletti Gallery.

The Louisville Glassworks is a workshop for glass artists who create commissioned works in the studio space, where you can watch them demonstrate glass blowing and flameworking techniques.

Louisville also has a great culinary scene, whether you’re eating downtown or elsewhere. A favorite restaurant of mine is not downtown but also not far from downtown. It’s The Grape Leaf on Frankfort Avenue, which serves an eclectic Mediterranean menu with great options for vegetarians and vegans, as well as meat lovers. It’s family-owned and reasonably priced.

If you’re a baseball lover, you won’t want to miss the Louisville Slugger Museum and Factory, where you’ll learn the history of the famous bats. Other museums in town are the Speed Art Museum with more than 12,000 pieces, including a Native American gallery and a 17th century English room.

From the Speed, join a walking tour of Old Louisville for an open-air Victorian architecture museum. The old homes on these streets are some of the best north of Savannah, Georgia.

The Muhammad Ali Center is perhaps the most inspiring place to visit in Ali’s hometown. Besides paying homage to his boxing career, the Center is devoted to promoting tolerance among religions and races. The exhibits are innovative, such as a circular screen on the ceiling under which you sit in lounge chairs and a screen on the floor surrounded by the ropes of a boxing ring, which you watch from above.

The Center also devotes exhibits to the Civil Rights Movement, including one that greets you with a voice saying, “You can’t come in” as you walk into what looks like a diner. Read my article focusing solely on the Center.

You could easily spend your entire stay in the downtown Louisville area, which is where these most interesting sights are located, but if you’re willing to make a short half-hour drive to Shelbyville, Kentucky, you can sample the fried chicken that Colonel Sanders really intended at his wife’s famous restaurant, Claudia Sanders Dinner House. If there’s such a thing as southern gourmet cooking, this is it. They serve a dozen different vegetables, and for dessert, there’s Kentucky pie (sometimes called Kentucky Derby Pie), which is pecan pie with chocolate chips and a little bit of bourbon. It’s decadent but worth every calorie.

To get the full flavor of the city’s history, don’t miss a ride on the historic paddlewheeler, The Belle of Louisville, if you visit during warm weather. You might even want to sip a mint julep while you read Tom Sawyer.