maria_so

Hi All,

We'll need lodgings for 1 night when visiting Mammoth Cave in Kentuck on Aug 18. Where would you recommend us to stay? Looked at Cave city but most reviews are terrible! Thanks

laurieb_nyny

We stayed in Elizabethtown. It is about an hour North but when you get to Cave City you pick up an hour in time difference. Lots of hotels & restaurants to choose from.

maria_so

thanks laurieb. we actually had elizabethtown at the la quinta to begin with but was thinking that cave city would be a better stay logistically coming from Nashville. However, after searching the net for a decent place to stay (even the park lodging looks awful), I think we are indeed going to go ahead and stay in Elizabethtown. It will help slightly with the drive the next day to the maker's mark distillery then off to smokey mountains.

Did you have dinner there (Elizabethtown)? If so, can you recommend somewhere? Is ther a nice little town area to walk around at early evening there? Many thanks in advance.

jent103

You could also stay in Bowling Green. I'm not incredibly familiar with it, but it's a decent size town with restaurants, hotels, etc., and certainly much closer to Nashville than Elizabethtown. (However, on your other thread you had mentioned going to the Makers Mark distillery the next day, in which case Elizabethtown makes more sense.)

If you decided to skip the distillery, you could just do Mammoth Cave as a day trip from Nashville. I have a coworker in Nashville who commutes from Bowling Green every day - it's a good drive (an hour or a little more) but definitely doable.

maria_so

thanks jent. we really want to do the distillery and now looking at the directions to knoxville from there, we see we'll be close to big south fork so we want to make the day even longer and check that out. we've decided it'll be late coming in that night and we'll probably just grab food in knoxville before heading to the cabins in seveirville.

jent103

Where is your cabin exactly? There are grocery stores in Sevierville and Pigeon Forge. Knoxville is a good hour's drive away, so if you're getting milk and meat and all that, you could stop in Sevierville instead and not have to let the cold items sit in the car that long. There are certainly grocery stores with easy access to the interstate in Knoxville, though, if you're not worried about it - including a 24-hour Wal-Mart off the Walker Springs/Gallaher View exit (379), if your mother-in-law wants a truly American experience.

maria_so

we're staying at hidden mountains resort in sevierville.

speaking of walmart, we need one in nashville to get a cooler and swimsuits for the in laws (they forgot to pack theirs from the UK).

Also, what's the artist community in Gatlinburg? Someone mentioned that to me before and I can't remember it.

carolyn

If you do drive from Mammoth Cave to E-town for the night, you might like to stop at Glendale to walk around and eat at the Whistle Stop Cafe. It's a home cooking, home made pie, kind of place, just beside the railroad tracks. There are several small shops to look through in a tiny town.

jent103

There's a Kroger on highway 66, which is the main thoroughfare from I-40 to Sevierville, and probably how you would get to the resort.

I'd just ask the front desk at your hotel where to get the cooler and swimsuits, or use the store locator page to find the stores along the route you'll be taking when you think you'll have time to shop. There's not a Wal-Mart or Target super close to the airport (there are in Hermitage, but that's a little out of the way - not too far, though). If you can wait till the second day, there's a Wal-Mart on Charlotte Pike on the west side of town, on your way to Memphis. The Wal-Mart store locator page will give you directions from your hotel.

Are you talking about Arrowmont?

maria_so

yeah, we can wait till the next day for the cooler and swimsuits so can get it on the way to memphis. thanks jent!

no, not arrowmont. it's a street that has all these little artist stores. i can't., for the life of me, remember the name of it but it's in the gatlinburg area.

carolyn, anything in elizabethtown? we're watching the movie with them tonight so would be cool to have dinner in the town itself since we won't have much time to really look around elizabethtown.

thanks all!

maria_so

oh, i think i found it. has anyone been to this and is it worth visiting? it's a loop road, apparently.

http://www.gatlinburgcrafts.com/

laurieb_nyny

We spent alot of time in Kentucky on that trip and had eaten alot of fantastic Southern food. By the time we got to E-Town we wanted something different so we went to Gondolier. It is a local Southern chain for Italian food but it was quite good.

carolyn

The only restaurant I've eaten at in E-town that isn't a chain (and there are lots of them) is called Back Home and is located on Highway 31-W going north from the town square. If you get to the hospital, you've gone too far.

I live in Louisville and meet old school friends for lunch in E-town because it's about half way between our homes. We usually look for someplace that doesn't mind if we sit and talk for a long time, so the chains suit us.