Le Relais: a Delicious Flight to a More Romantic Time.
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| Image via KAHS/ Bowman Field |
Louisville's Taylorsville Road is hardly a romantic stretch. I've always thought of it as a bridge between the Highlands and the East End, with few remarkable sights of its own. There are a lot of ranch-style houses.
But, just past a strip of Taylorsville Road gas stations and liquor stores, lies Bowman Field, Kentucky's first commercial airport which dates back to 1922. Charles Lindbergh once flew the Spirit of St Louis there. Scenes from Goldfinger were filmed there. It's a charming testament to the glamor and romance of the early days of flight.
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| Image via Le Relais. |
Nestled inside the Art Deco terminal building is Le Relais, a charming French bistro with a decidedly nostalgic feel. Sometimes, on just the right day, you feel like you've stepped into a scene from Casablanca. It's almost impossible to believe that you're still a stone's throw away from everyday Louisville as you order fromage, escargots, and tarte aux pommes. Rather, you feel that you're in a magical way station, fueling up on delicious French food as you prepare to board a plane for a more romantic time.
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| Image via Le Relais |
Le Relais is my favorite Valentine's Day dinner destination. The beautiful location, extensive wine list, and delicious French fare provide a truly romantic backdrop without the overwrought gimmicks that so often arise with the February holiday. Instead, Le Relais can provide you with a fantastic crème brûlée and the off-chance of seeing Lindbergh's ghost. That's a pretty special Valentine's Day in my book.
Kentucky Places: The Louisville List
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| Downtown Louisville as seen from Indiana |
Now, my friend is planning for an early June trip to a concert at the Yum! Center and a few days' stay in downtown Louisville. She's never been to Louisville before, and wants to get a sense of the city. There are so many attractions within walking/easy driving distance that this trip virtually plans itself. Even though it's the middle of winter, talk of a Downtown Louisville summer puts me in the mood for Proof's gelato, a ride on the Belle, and a seat on Molly Malone's patio. -- HCW
The Yum Center and Downtown Museums
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| The Ali Center |
The guys on the trip will probably want to see the Louisville Slugger Museum. If baseball's your thing, the RiverBats - the Minor League team
- play downtown. The Frazier Museum has a lot of historical war/arms stuff. The Muhammad Ali Center is
also quite neat -- it's kind of a walking tour of The Champ's life, as well as a
cultural center that supports a lot of education and charity events. There are also some very cute galleries/museums up and down
Main Street, near Slugger, Frazier and the Ali.
Hotels
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| The Seelbach lobby |
The Seelbach is way more traditional with four-poster cherry beds, marble lobbies, etc. I feel like a princess every time I stay there. It has some really cool little bars, the best Starbucks in town, and an amazing day spa. It also boasts the only five-diamond restaurant in the state. They're even dog-friendly, and treated Max like a visiting dignitary. Fitzgerald actually got thrown out of the Seelbach for public drunkenness and then set Daisy's wedding there when he wrote The Great Gatsby.
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| Outside Jeff Ruby's |
Food/ Entertainment
My very favorite breakfast in the world is at Toast on Market. The Blueberry-Lemon Pancakes are insane, as are
the pancakes that are dressed out like a pot roast sandwich. Their hash brown
casserole is incredible as well. Also on
Market is Garage Bar, which is a high-end wood-fired pizza place that also
includes a great oyster bar.
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| Max visits Fourth Street Live. |
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| The Belle of Louisville |
Oh, and if the weather permits, you can go out on a
steamboat. The Belle of Louisville and the Spirit of Jefferson do lunch and
dinner cruises and little sightseeing excursions. It's a very neat way to see
downtown from the river.
The Highlands
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| Molly Malone's |
I absolutely love the Louisville Stoneware factory--they do
tours, paint-your-own, etc., and their big summer sale should be going on.
There are also several really cute Irish Pub kind of places in the Highlands --
Molly Malones and O'Shea's are the kind of places where everyone from college
kids to Congressmen go -- very laid-back and fun.
Churchill Downs
Louisville in general
Louisville is a really fun city. It can be a little more
Midwestern than the rest of Kentucky -- people talk and walk a little faster and
sure do drink in public more than they do anywhere else in the state. I think
y'all will really like it, though. It's beautiful in the spring and summer!
Also, it has really easy roads to navigate for a city its size; you really can
get from one part of town to another pretty rapidly.
The biggest drawback to Louisville in the late spring/early
summer is the weather. It's located right along the Ohio river and gets a lot
of the river basin storms/tornado watches.
What about y'all, dear readers? What's on your "Must-See Louisville" list??
(All photos are my own.)
What about y'all, dear readers? What's on your "Must-See Louisville" list??
(All photos are my own.)
Kentucky Places: Old Morrison
Old Morrison is the centerpiece of Transylvania's campus. Over its storied past it has been a Civil War hospital, a crypt, been consumed by fire TWICE, and housed administrators for the college.
It is one of my favorite places in Kentucky but not because of its amazing history. I love it because it has served as the backdrop for so much of mine.
Turning into its driveway on my first campus visit, my friend and I were involved in a car wreck because we confused North Broadway for a two way street...it is not.
Running around its front on Bid Day, I joined my sorority and gained friends I will have for life.
Two years later, I ran down its steps to rejoin that sorority after spending a long (long) couple weeks as a Rho Chi.
Laying on its lawn for class after class over four years, I learned that nature really is the best classroom...and distractor.
Sitting in its shadow on graduation day, I ended the best four years of my life and faced a life full of possibility.
In the spring of 2001, I sat on its portico and took this picture. I sat there in tears and looked at those impossibly beautiful trees. My college boyfriend had just told me he had been accepted to law school at Duke. He was moving away and it seemed like the end of my world. I was trying to decide if I really wanted to stick with it and be in a long distance relationship for two years. I came to Old Morrison to get some peace and hopefully some wisdom.
Ultimately, I decided to stick it out and I'm glad I did. That college boyfriend is now my husband of eight years and the father of my two children. I can't say Old Morrison made that decision for me but its presence in the background - solid and strong - made it a little bit easier.
Kentucky Places: Noble Park Christmas Lights Display
Every year Paducah Power puts on a spectacular lights display at Noble Park in Paducah.
My favorite part is watching some of the displays reflect off the pond.
Kentucky Places: Shaker Village
When I was in the fifth grade, we took a field trip to the Shaker Village of Pleasant Hill. I can still remember the village like it was yesterday.
Shaker Village is located in Pleasant Hill, Kentucky, which is about 45 minutes from Lexington, Kentucky.
Shaker Village is an original Shaker Religious Community that was active from 1805 to 1910. It is now a preserved National Historic Landmark.
The Village has a Living History museum where you can watch craftspeople display broom making, woodworking, spinning, and weaving. 
Kentucky Places: The University of Kentucky Chandler Medical Center
When you're from a rural Kentucky town, you tend to identify yourself with a "home city." You go to Lexington, Louisville, Nashville or Cincinnati for big shopping excursions, social events, and healthcare. You don't really even think about the distance. It's just where you go.
Last week, my father had surgery at the University of Kentucky Medical Center. Now, Lexington is my family's "home city", despite the fact that it's a nearly two and a half hour drive from my parents' house. Similarly, UK is our "home school", despite the fact that most members of my family hold degrees from other universities. We all cheer on our Wildcats, we've all attended meetings and classes on campus, and we all revere the first-rate healthcare services that the University provides.
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| Commonwealth Stadium, #RISE |
It was an interesting experience to walk the University's campus with a focus on the Med Center, rather than on the school itself. I went past so many sites that held rich memories of my own grad school years and beyond. As I took breaks from the waiting room, I walked past the football field where I've tailgated so many times and noted the Greek housing where many of my friends once lived. I passed the buildings where my beau and I each earned our graduate degrees. I stopped for a second to salute Memorial Coliseum, where I've had the good fortune to watch some of the University's basketball greats practice. So many campus buildings held such specific family memories -- there's a building named for my grandfather's least favorite professor, there's the building where my beau conducted a hilarious B-school project -- and yet, I was rushing back to the hospital, a site far removed from these happy memories.
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| Photo Wall, Chandler Medical Center |
At some point during our hospital visit, I stopped focusing on the dichotomy of school and fun versus the scary hospital. I listened to my aunt's stories of bringing my cousin (a toddler at the time) to the Med Center Courtyard to visit my uncle during the few brief breaks he could take during his medical residency. And, I started to really focus on the hospital's decorations -- a dynamic photo wall of Kentucky images, a painting by my dad's distant cousin, quilt wall hangings -- which reflected the communities from which the patients and employees hailed. The Chandler Med Center, I realized, was embracing its role as many Kentuckians' "home hospital."
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| Waiting Room View |
Kentucky Places: The Lake
Not Kentucky Lake. Not Barkley Lake. Not even Land Between the Lakes.
Every summer my family goes to just "The Lake."
Going to The Lake for my mother meant spending her childhood at my great-grandparents' lake house. She and my father married on their sloping lawn in a simple ceremony during the heat of summer. My childhood memories weren't experienced from the shore but on the water itself. Every Fourth of July was celebrated on my great-uncle's house boat The Paper Doll. The waves would rock us back and forth until I could feel them laying in bed that same evening back on solid ground.
Every summer my family goes to just "The Lake."
Going to The Lake for my mother meant spending her childhood at my great-grandparents' lake house. She and my father married on their sloping lawn in a simple ceremony during the heat of summer. My childhood memories weren't experienced from the shore but on the water itself. Every Fourth of July was celebrated on my great-uncle's house boat The Paper Doll. The waves would rock us back and forth until I could feel them laying in bed that same evening back on solid ground.
The house boat is long gone. Now, my family's headquarters is back on the shore. My grandmother and great-aunt and uncle have built another lake house. Again, just "the lake house" where we spend every major holiday until the house is shuttered up for the winter. We have a pontoon boat and spend the summer jumping off the rock quarry or docked on one of the small sandy beaches. We spend the evenings on the deck eating (and eating and eating), talking, or playing games.
My own children will now have memories of The Lake. (After being told we were going to Meema's lake house, he now just calls it "Meema's Lake.") I took a group of friends to the lake house for one weekend this summer. Between us, we had six kids ranging in ages from 4 months to 6 years. They spent all day swimming, riding on the boat, hunting frogs. One described it as the best day of his life. Another asked his mother if God would let him live there in heaven.
The Lake has that effect on people.