The city of Louisville is best known as the starting place of the Bourbon Trail, a collection of over 70 distilleries that stretch all over Kentucky, where over 90% of bourbon is produced, with a key grouping right in the heart of the city, in Whiskey Row. But did you know there’s lots more to Louisville than just bourbon? Here are 10 things you need to know if you’re planning to visit.
1. The city has one of the best collection of vintage Victorian homes, which have to be seen to be believed. Most people miss the 1,400 historic homes, which is a shame, says David Dimone, who runs the Louisville Historic Tours company. “This is one of the largest historic neighborhoods in the country, if not the biggest,” he adds, and they originally belonged to bourbon, tobacco and racing barons of the day. “So drinking, smoking and gambling made this town.”
2. Churchill Downs is the setting for the annual Kentucky Derby, which takes place just once a year, on the first Saturday of May. But Downs is actually open to the public year-round to visit the facilities and museum, and tours of the race track are available daily.
3. Louisville is the birthplace of Muhammad Ali, who is celebrated at the downtown Muhammad Ali Center. But you don’t have to be a boxing fan to appreciate it. The museum uses Ali’s life to tell a much bigger story about civil rights, humanitarianism and his core principles. And yes, there’s plenty of boxing history too.
4. Louisville also gave its name to the most famous baseball bat in America, the Louisville Slugger. At the downtown Louisville Slugger Museum & Factory, you can watch bats being made—and pose with a 120-foot baseball bat leaning against the building outside.
5. Don’s miss the NuLu neighborhood (for “New Louisville,”) immediately east of downtown and centered around East Market Street. It’s chock full of trendy shops, galleries and eateries. Our favorite: Royal’s Hit Chicken, which brings a contemporary twist to fried chicken from Kentucky.
6. Eat a Hot Brown. Louisville has a signature dish and it was invented at the Brown Hotel: an open-faced turkey sandwich with bacon, tomato and Mornay sauce. The Brown Hotel is still the obvious place to have the original and the J Graham Cafe.
7. Louisville is a river city. The Ohio River is a huge part of the city’s identity. Head to Waterfront Park and walk across the Big Four Bridge, the former railroad bridge that’s now a pedestrian and bicycle bridge connecting Louisville with Jeffersonville, Indiana. It also gives you some of the best skyline and river views.
8. Louisville has one of America’s great urban parks systems. This is something most visitors probably don’t know. Frederick Law Olmsted, the landscape architect behind New York’s Central Park, designed Louisville’s massive park system as well. And it’s a beaut!
9. Louisville does weird extremely well. On the Victorian tour, Dimone will stop at the old Witches’ Tree. According to local legend, witches cursed the city after their favorite tree was cut down, and a bizarre new tree eventually grew in its place.
10. You can visit Colonel Sanders without going to KFC. Cave Hill Cemetery is beautiful, historic and remarkably photogenic—and it’s the final resting place of both Colonel Harland Sanders and Muhammad Ali.
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