After a later breakfast we wandered out into town. It is warm & sunny so out came the shorts, sandals & sun hats. Louisville is an odd place, there is scope for development alongside modern tower blocks. We get the feeling that it is trying to reinvent itself but doesn’t quite know how. It is, however, famous for several things—Bourbon, baseball bats, the Kentucky Derby & Muhammad Ali. It is situated on the Ohio river, which like all the rivers in this part of the world is vast.
We started off in the visitors centre of the Louisville Slugger & learned how baseball bats are made. It is a very well done inter-active centre & of course there was lots of info on the heroes of the game–Joe DiMaggio & Babe Ruth for example. Doug had to satisfy himself with buying a miniature bat that doubles up as a pen. From there we went to the Muhammad Ali centre & spent a happy couple of hours learning about him, his career & development together with the evolution of the civil rights movement in America. I had not expected to enjoy this at all but came away much wiser. Again it was very well done with much more inter-active material.
The Kentucky Derby is obviously a huge event & the town is well geared up to cater for the influx of race goers. There are a lot of big hotels (which must be only partly occupied outside of race times), casinos & fast food joints. Although there are tourists around the numbers that we have seen cannot come close to the numbers of rooms available.
We don’t like bourbon so haven’t been tempted to follow the Bourbon Trail.
Our hotel—21C Museum Hotel— was opened about 8 yrs ago & serves as a hotel, bar, restaurant & Art gallery. It is open 24 hrs & is modern & obviously one of the ‘places’ to be. We did a tour of the exhibits/installations after breakfast. Not particularly to our taste but interesting nevertheless. One interesting feature of the hotel is the Penguins that are dotted around. They are red & about 3ft high & are rarely in the same place for very long. They are even on the roof & I hope that my photo captures them.
After our culinary experiences of last night we are dining in the hotel tonight, but if the breakfast menu is anything to go by we will need some translations. Divided by a common language!!