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From Lynn’s, head northwest into downtown Louisville, admiring the vintage brick-factory architecture along the way. The downtown area is one of the oldest established districts in Louisville, colonized by soldiers during the Revolutionary War. The Ohio River marks the Mason-Dixon line, that once-crucial invisible divider between North and South. Before the Civil War, Southern-side Louisville had one of the busiest slave markets in the country. The phrase “sold down the river” probably originated here as a lament of Kentucky slaves whose family members were taken down the Ohio to be sold in Louisville. These days locals jog, bike and push strollers along the Louisville RiverWalk, part of the city’s extensive, paved trail system.

The city is located on the Falls of the Ohio, a portion of riverbed with an exposed fossilized reef formed more than 350 million years ago, when the area was the ocean floor. Today, you can visit the Falls of the Ohio State Park, across the river from Louisville in Clarksville, Indiana. The park offers fishing, bird-watching and fossil viewing, with a museum featuring a 14ft mammoth skeleton and a diorama of Devonian-period sea life.

The main attraction in downtown Louisville has got to be the Louisville Slugger Museum. After all, what says “American” more than baseball? And what says “baseball” more than the five-story-high baseball bat marking the entrance to this cool museum/factory? Hillerich & Bradsby Co has been making the iconic Slugger here since 1884. The bat rose to fame in the early 1900s when the company paid Pittsburgh Pirates hitter Honus Wagner to swing one, the earliest example of a celebrity athlete endorsement. Since then, legends Babe Ruth, Ty Cobb and Lou Gehrig have all been Slugger men, as are some 60% of all Major League Baseball players today. The modern museum offers a plant tour, a hall of baseball memorabilia including Babe Ruth’s slugger, a batting cage and a free mini slugger. You can buy a customized bat in the lobby, with the message of your choice embossed on the wood. Note that bat production halts on Sunday, and on Saturday in winter.

While downtown, stick with the sports theme and head on over to the enormous Muhammad Ali Center. Born Cassius Clay in the segregated Louisville of the 1940s, Ali was encouraged to begin boxing at age 12 by a local police officer. He went on to become one of the greatest sports legends of the 20th century, winning three World Heavyweight Championships and an Olympic gold medal. Ali was nearly as famous for his words as his punches - his outspoken refusal to back down to anyone, including the US government (he lost his boxing license for several years when he refused to be drafted for the Vietnam War) earned him the nickname the “Louisville Lip.” The museum includes an interactive boxing ring and video projections of Ali’s most famous fights, as well as exhibits on segregation and the civil rights movement. Feel what it was like to be black in Jim Crow America when you step into a model lunch counter and recorded voices begin to shout at you, telling you to get out, that “your kind” is not welcome. It’s truly disturbing.

For dinner, head back to the Highlands neighborhood, known for its wealth of restaurants and night spots. Pickings are especially good along the northern portion of Bardstown Rd. Try Lilly’s Bistro, an acclaimed upscale eatery featuring “Kentucky tapas” - think catfish spring rolls, fried frogs legs in red-pepper sauce - and luscious, locally sourced meat and seafood mains, brought to you by native celebrity chef Kathy Cary.

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“We’ve got a huge music scene. The Rudyard Kipling is a really, really cool little bar, with music and art shows and food. There’s a bar called Third Street Dive, very punk rock. Skull Alley seems to be a younger crowd; local artists sell their stuff there. The Monkey Wrench is a fun bar, with lots of local bands. Cahoots is a rock bar, and Headliners is a good venue for bigger touring bands.

Jessie