enjoylife

I will be in Louisville 11/11-11/12. Any ideas of must sees and must eats? I have already been told that I must eat at Claudia Sanders and go to the Kentucky Derby Museum.
Anything else?

donco

Hi enjoylife, please see if a search for the subject will bring up some of the recent posts about Lville. Click on 'donco' if search doesn't work. The 2 big hotels downtown (Brown and Seelbach (sp?)) are worth looks. They used to have awesome brunches.

spring212

How about a day at the races? Churchill Downs is open in November.

dusty56438

Kentucky Derby Museum

Joe Ley Antiques

Louisville Slugger Museum

Bardtown Road is filled with historic buildings, restaurants, pubs, etc.

Stroll the riverfront around the Belle of Louisville.

carolyn

Actually, the Claudia Sanders restaurant is in Shelbyville, about 30 miles east of Louisville. If you are looking for splurge restaurants, try Lilly's or Cafe Metro. Just across the street from Cafe Metro is its less expensive but good sister restaurant (and with the same luscious desserts), the Uptown Cafe. All these are on Bardstown Road.

rex

The Forest Discovery Center, and Huber's Winery, in nearby Starlight, Indiana - - though November is a bit past the prime season there.

Oh, may I pre-apologize for this shameless plug? Our daughter got married at the Forest Discovery Center, and reception at Huber's.

But they really are very popular local draws!

Best wishes,

Rex Bickers
Floyds Knobs, Indiana

atlswan

When I was in Louisville in 2002, it seemed like the downtown area sort of shut down after 6 p.m. I was there for a convention and found few places to eat unless I went down to the river or crossed over to the other side.

The Louisville Slugger Museum really is awesome and I wasn't a big baseball fan when I went. I am now! You can actually heft some of the bats MLB players use. They also show you how they make the bats. It's a fun place to visit.

The Seelbach is lovely but the rooms are on the small side.

LLindaC

Well, altswan, things have changed here!I don't think Claudia Sanders is worth the drive. Boring southern food.Agree about a day at the Downs, it's fun. We have a new Marriott downtown which is quite nice. Also, near downtown but closer to Central Park and lovely old mansions are several wonderful B&Bs including the Inn at the Park and the wonderful Culbertson mansion. The entire 4th street area has been revamped to include new restaurants and bars including a Hard Rock Cafe in an area called 4th Street Live. Our riverfront has been cleaned up quite a bit and has a great lawn, long walking paths, playgrounds, a Joe's Crab shack, etc. Across the river on the Jeffersonville shore are other restaurants. I would invite you on our steam paddlewheel boat, The Belle of Louisville, where I play the calliope, but we don't have cruises then. There are great restaurants on Bardstown Road and Frankfort Avenue as well. My favs are the excellent L&N wine bar and restaurant with it's limitless wine varieties and great food, Azalea, Lilly's, Zs Oyster Bar, Jarfi's Bistro at the Center for the Arts, Mellilo's for great Italian in cozy atmosphere (mamma mia!) on market St. Have fun and welcome!

atlswan

I'm thrilled to hear about the change, LLindaC. I do like Louisville on the whole. The week I spent there for a convention in 2002 was enjoyable and the people were incredibly nice. I hope to go back someday and visit some of the places you mentioned.

LLindaC

C'mon back atl! ;-) I loved it last week when Orlando Bloom was on Oprah talking about how Louisville was like a second home! We still have a lot of work to do downtown, but it's definitely better and we've torn down all the porn shops and places that were by the convention center. When they build our new stadium down there, it will be a real bonus, for sure.

enjoylife

ttt

indytravel

I've gone to Louisville for years and enjoyed it in the lean years as well as the better ones.

I've always wondered. When are they going to shut down that strip of I-64 and take back their river front? For heaven's sake make those semi's take the bypass and reclaim your waterfront!

rex

Hey wait a minute, David... how will we in New Albany/Floyds Knobs/Floyd County/Harrison County get to/from Louisville? Tear down the Sherman Minton bridge? Buid a new freeway, a la Yerba Buena (as in the Oakland Bay bridge) over shippingport "island"? T it into that rust bucket JFK bridge?

LLindaC

LOL- that rust bucket indeed! And now with the drop cloths flapping around on it, it looks like it's been TP'd. (If you don't have teens, that means toilet-papered) Actually, that stretch of 64 is most intrusive just over the part where the wharf is. They've improved the riverfront to the east of downtown and you don't have to deal with traffic at all. Plenty of parking and walking space around there. Also, Market Street is really going through some great changes. We're getting a new extended stay hotel
(Marriott, I believe) plus they have a first Friday trolley hop that includes restaurants and art galleries and wineries. Frankfort Ave- another stretch of cute shops, restaurants and galleries- also has a trolley hop. On Bardstown Rd, Frankfort Ave and downtown there are many good restaurants that are not chains, thankfully. (Oh, yes, that dreaded 64 also leads people to Caesar's Casino!!)

trsanford

The Frasier Historical Arms Museum is great. Much more history than arms. Lots of interactive stuff. If you're downtown check out the Metro Deli for breakfast or lunch--it's near the convention center. Bristol is a great restaurant. Los Aztecas if you like Mexican. Kingfish is a Louisville fish restaurant that's really good. Checkout wheretogousa.com for more ideas.

rex

For what it's worth, the Muhammad Ali Center is/has been holding its gala grand opening festivities this weekend (didn't get there myself).

And I have never been to Los Aztecas, but I did see its name on a list of restaurants featured on a promotion from United Airlines - - 1000 FF miles gets you a $25 off certificate. It's as good a deal as you can get from using those miles on air travel.

aileen679

If you are into such things, the Cave Hill Cemetery is interesting. We went there once as part of a Get Together. I was pleasantly surprised at all the interesting types of entombments, monuments, etc. They have a collection of special trees that are noteworthy because of their age or size. It's a nice quiet way to spend a couple of hours walking or riding.

rex

I guess while this thread is up and running, I'll similarly put in a good word for the Fall of the Ohio State Park, and particularly its museum. I've actually never been to the park at the "right" time of year (perhaps now?) when you can walk way out into the exposed fossil beds which lie under the river when the water level is higher.

but... as small museums go, I think the museum is VERY impressing - - it's a piece of geologic and human geophysical engineering that every local should learn. I certainly never knew any of this stuff from what we learned in school (and we take an entire year of Indiana history in grade school!)

I felt really dumbfounded to learn that what you see as you drive along the "Riverside Expressway" (I-64 from the Sherman Minton bridge to/from downtown Louisville) is not river at all, but rather the manmade canal that runs parallel to the river (thus bypassing the "Falls" of the Ohio).

It's simple physics/earth science that any southern Indiana kid should know - - or want to know, if you've every crossed the river at Louisville and Evansville both. How come the river is so much wider at Louisville than at Evansville - - after all, all the water has to flow past both points... wouldn't the river be bigger at Evansville? The museum shows the obvious answer... the Second Street and JFK bridge(s) both are built over the Ohio where it is a big shallow basin - - where the river gets so shallow that it was, in fact not navigable. Taht's why they stopped there. That's why Clarksville (Indiana) and Louisville are where they are. That's why there is a section of the Louisville (west end) named Portland - - they had to port everything over land to get from Pittsburgh on down the river.

Until they created a canal unlike anything in the United States at the time... and thus created Shippingport "Island".

History buffs will find a lot to like also. The financing of the canal entreprise seems to be, in effect, the first "IPO" in U.S. Securities history, if I understood it correctly.

LLindaC

yes, good to see it alive. I'm 50, lived here all my life and traveled the world. My stepdad owned a food company and my brotherwas a chef. That being said, Kingfish is NOT a good restaurant. It has fried fish, serves the mass market and is a huge place that serves volume, not quality. A GOOD seafood restaurant in Louisville is Z's. The Bristol? NOT. Smoky, basic food (think burgers) and no imagination. Eclectic? Lilly's, Artemesia, Jack Fry's. Mexican? De La Torres. We just had a great dinner at Vincenzo's- lovely. For homestyle Italian , Mellilo's on Market St. For great Asian/Pacific Rim, Asiatique on Bardstown Rd or August Moon on Lexington Rd. For wine lovers, L and N Wine Bar and restaurant on Mellwood or Napa River Grill (a bit smoky, though) For a great lunch or breakfast/brunch North End Cafe on Frankfort Ave. Now these are some GREAT places!! OOps- forgot Azaleas on Brownsboro, always good.