Louisville Travel Guide

Best known for hosting the Kentucky Derby each May, Louisville is more than a one horse-race town. Kentucky's largest city, Louisville (which you can call "Lou-uh-vull" or "Louey-ville" but never "Lou-IS-ville") is a growing arts center, with several theaters (Actors Theater's annual Humana Festival for New American Plays has received international attention), a symphony, opera, orchestra and a number of art galleries. Its college basketball team plays in a brand new arena that doubles as a concert venue, and Louisville doctors performed both the first human hand transplant, then the first double hand transplant. Louisville is home to North America's largest annual pyrotechnic display (Thunder Over Louisville, which starts the two-week Kentucky Derby Festival), the Louisville Slugger bat, boxer Muhammad Ali, author Hunter S. Thompson, Tori Murden McClure (the first woman to row across the Atlantic), the band My Morning Jacket and the first Lebowski Fest. The city has a parks system designed by Frederick Law Olmsted (co-designer of New York's Central Park), and has won the Conference of Mayors' City Livability Award. With a population of a million, Louisville is not a large town, but visitors will find themselves warmly welcomed with plenty to do. Downtown Louisville activities occur in several pockets of the city. Art galleries, shops and local restaurants welcome visitors in NuLu (Market and Main Streets, between Baxter and I-64). Museum Row along West Main includes the Louisville Slugger Museum, Science Center, 21C Museum Hotel and the Kentucky Center for the Arts, as well as KFC Yum Center, the new arena for college basketball, Louisvillians' sport of choice. South of Market and Main, Fourth Street Live! draws crowds with its nightclubs, bars, restaurants, shops and free outdoor concerts. Between downtown and the University of Louisville, the Old Louisville neighborhood is a National Preservation District and the largest Victorian district in the nation. In the summer, the Kentucky Shakespeare Festival takes place in Old Louisville's Central Park, and in October, the St. James Art Fair welcomes 750 artists to the neighborhood (an independent art fair, the UnFair, occurs at the same time for local artists who cannot afford St. James's booth fees). Southeast of downtown, Bardstown Road and the Highlands neighborhood offer a stretch of bars, restaurants, cafes and shops, ranging from high-end boutiques to thrift and vintage clothing stores. Hippies playing guitars in front of head shops mix with the well-heeled (and families, and hipsters and just about everyone else) on their way to dinner, coffee or a movie. A turn off Bardstown Road leads to Cherokee Park's golf course and trails, and Cavehill Cemetery, at the Baxter end of the Highlands, is another walking option. Similar to the Highlands, the Clifton and Crescent Hills neighborhoods border Frankfort Avenue, another road lined with restaurants and shops (fewer hippies, more of the well-heeled). Continuing east on Frankfort leads to St. Matthew's and the East End, where suburban sprawl begins with two malls, the Westport outdoor mall and clusters of both local and chain restaurants. The Louisville metro area extends across the Ohio River into southern Indiana, where the Indiana towns (Jeffersonville, New Albany) offer great views of downtown Louisville as well as several local restaurants, such as the Bank Street Brewhouse and Toast. For a natural history lesson and 390-million-year-old Devonian fossils, visit the Falls of the Ohio State Park. If you have time to head further out of town, check out Jefferson Memorial Forest in south Louisville, or Mammoth Cave National Park (about two hours south of Louisville). Or, explore the Kentucky countryside while learning about bourbon (and history!) by visiting the various distilleries on the Kentucky Bourbon Trail.

Where to Go in Louisville