Louisville, Kentucky - June 13th to 14th, 2023
When people consider visiting Louisville, the first things that probably come to mind are Churchill Downs (home of the Kentucky Derby), bourbon tours, and the Louisville Slugger baseball bat museum and factory. But when we tour cities, we prefer strolling areas rich in old architecture and character along with nice public spaces.
We started out by taking the Historic Old Louisville Walking Tour. The tour starts at the Historic Old Louisville Neighborhood & Visitors Center building located in Central Park. We made the mistake of thinking we could park in the lot next to the building, but the Visitors Center shares the building with the police department and a sign indicated parking was for police vehicles only. So we found a place to park along W. Hill St. There is on-street parking all over the neighborhood, but some of the streets are rather narrow. Hill St is one of the busier streets, but it was wider, so we felt more comfortable parking Red Tail (our Winnebago EKKO) there.
We arrived in plenty of time for the 11 am tour. The Center offers guided tours twice per day, Tuesday through Saturday. There is another a tour company that does one and a half hour Old Louisville History and Architecture Walking Tours. Old Louisville is 45 square blocks of Victorian mansions built from 1880 to 1910, the largest preservation district with almost entirely Victorian architecture. Normally we just wander around beautiful, old architecture. This time we decided to learn more about the history and architectural styles. The tour was well worth the money.
After the tour, we drove down to Waterfront Park. We would have liked to walk from Old Louisville, but they are three miles apart, which is just a little too far if we wanted to spend time exploring the area. We get a little nervous trying to drive and park Red Tail in a city, but we had no problems getting to and parking it near the Lincoln Memorial. Parking in the lots in Waterfront Park is free.
From the Lincoln Memorial, we walked over to the Big Four Bridge. The bridge was a railroad bridge over the Ohio River, built in 1895. The name Big Four refers to the railroad company that used the bridge, the Cleveland, Cincinnati, Chicago and St. Louis Railway, whose nickname was the Big Four. The railroad stopped using the bridge in 1968 and was converted to a pedestrian and bicycle bridge in 2013. A long, circular ramp leads people up onto the bridge from Waterfront Park with another long, circular ramp leading down from the bridge to the Big Four Station park in Jeffersonville, Indiana.
We strolled across the bridge, enjoyed a lemonade from Fresco Tea Bar in Jeffersonville, then strolled back across the bridge. There are nice views up and down the Ohio River. The bridges that carry I-64 across the river do block some of the views of downtown Louisville from the Big Four bridge. The most annoying part of having I-64 so close to the Big Four Bridge and Waterfront Park is the traffic noise. The park and bridge would be so much more peaceful and enjoyable without the constant noise.
From Waterfront Park, we walked over to the East Market District, also known as NuLu. We wouldn’t recommend walking from Waterfront Park as you need to walk through a rather industrialized area to get there, but it is less than a mile and we did feel safe despite not being a very scenic area. NuLu is a five block long area along Market Street with trendy shops, restaurants, bars, and a couple of hotels, along with colorful murals.
We started at Louisville Cream for some ice cream before strolling up and down Market Street. Then we had an early dinner at Feast BBQ. Keith had smoked wings with tater tots while Ann ordered the pulled pork with collard greens and sweet potato fries. We were not that hungry, so that probably affected our impression of the food. Ann liked the sweet potato fries and we both enjoyed the BBQ’s meat, but Ann did not like the collard greens. The smoked greens had a burnt flavor with pulled pork mixed in. She was not a fan.
Wednesday, we met relatives at the Bristol Bar & Grill in Louisville. While Keith had the club sandwich, Ann tried the Hot Brown. The Hot Brown is a dish local to Louisville, created by the Brown Hotel in the 1920’s. It is a variation of the Welsh rarebit. The Hot Brown is an open-faced sandwich with turkey, ham, & bacon covered in a Mornay sauce and baked. Bristol Bar’s version does not contain ham, but adds cheddar cheese and tomato. It was pretty tasty.
Although the different areas of the city are not easily connected by foot or bike, Louisville does have some nice areas to stroll through. Taking a guided tour really added to the experience.
Check out our related video: Louisville, Kentucky
(Ann)