Amish Acres, in Nappanee (south of Shipshewana), features tours of a restored Amish farm and homestead made up of 18 structures from the 19th century. The highlight here is the Thresher’s Dinner, served family style in the round barn: farm-size platters of fried chicken, roast turkey, or beef, plus mashed potatoes, cornbread, and the must-sample molasses-based shoofly pie.
Thousands of acres of corn stretch as far as the eye can see. The bounty is put to good use at the Yoder popcorn shop in Topeka, 12 miles south of Shipshewana. Yoder’s sells “popcorn the way you remember it,” in various flavors scooped straight from the popper into paper sacks.
Horse-drawn buggies travel Shipshewana’s country roads.
WHERE: 150 miles north of Indianapolis. VISITOR INFO: www.backroads.org MISCELLANEOUS & ANTIQUE AUCTION: www.tradingplaceamerica.com. When: Wed. AMISH ACRES: Tel 800-800-4942 or 574-773-4188; www.amishacres.com. Cost: dinner $18. When: closed Jan–Feb. YODER POPCORN: Tel 800-892-2170 or 260-768-4051; www.yoderpopcorn.com. WHERE TO STAY: The welcoming Spring View B&B in Goshen sits on a pond 15 minutes from most sites. Tel 574-642-3997; www.springview.com. Cost: from $69. BEST TIMES: Tues–Wed, May–Oct for the Shipshewana Flea Market; mid-Jul for Elkhart County 4-H Fair; early Aug for Arts & Crafts Festival at Amish Acres; Sat after Labor Day for the Valparaiso Popcorn Festival.
America’s Most Famous Ag-stravaganza
IOWA STATE FAIR
Des Moines, Iowa, U.S.A.
Immortalized by the 1932 Phil Stong novel State Fair, which inspired Rodgers and Hammerstein’s Broadway musical and three motion pictures, the Iowa State Fair is a true American classic. For 11 days in August, more than a million people enjoy all the signatures of the modern state fair: stomach-churning rides on the midway, sugar-dusted funnel cakes and deep-fried Oreos, and big-name entertainers. But the Iowa State Fair, which started in 1854 as a way to bring far-flung country folks together, has stayed close to its rural roots. It is one of the world’s largest livestock exhibitions—after all, it was Iowa that invented 4-H, the educational organization for rural youth.
There’s still hog- (and husband-) calling, cow-chip throwing, the Super Bull contest, and of course the Butter Cow, sculpted from 550 pounds of the stuff. For many, young and old alike, the fair is the place to strut their stuff, in competitions that judge everything from cattle to needlepoint to vegetables. The pie department is an old-time favorite, with butterscotch, strawberry, pumpkin, apple, and countless other subdivisions. A blue ribbon is the ultimate prize—and more than 5,000 of them are awarded every year.
Just about everyone comes to fatten up on deep-fried foods you can find only once a year—more than 40 kinds are served here on sticks. The trend started with the 1950s corn dog, and has since spread to pork chops (Iowa has 16 million hogs—that’s 5 for every human), dill pickles, and even Twinkies. Other local favorites include caveman-size turkey drumsticks, Carl’s two-handful sandwiches called Gizmos, and fresh strawberry and peach ice cream from Bauder Pharmacy, an establishment that has been making kids (and grownups) smile since 1923.
In addition to staples like pizza and soda pop, corn dogs and other foods that come on sticks are prevalent.
INFO: Tel 800-545-4692 or 515-262-3111; www.iowastatefair.org. WHEN: 11 days in mid-Aug.
Horse Heaven
BLUEGRASS COUNTRY
Kentucky, U.S.A.
Central Kentucky’s bluegrass country is one of America’s most genteel and elegant landscapes, spread over 15 counties and 8,000 square miles accented by Tara-style manor houses and oak plank fences. It is also the undisputed international center of Thoroughbred horse breeding, and horses live better here than most humans do, in cupola-topped barns with hand-forged gates and stained-glass windows.
Two of America’s most scenic byways, the Old Frankfort Pike and the Paris Pike, wend past more than 400 farms, many home to former Kentucky Derby winners (four-legged gold mines earning their keep as studs).
Most of these farms are closed to the public, but north of Lexington, the 1,200-acre Kentucky Horse Park welcomes lovers of all things equine to the International Museum of the Horse and the American Saddlebred Museum. The park also hosts scores of annual happenings, including the prestigious Rolex Kentucky Three Day Event, in April, with everything from dressage to jumping contests.
Although Louisville’s Churchill Downs hosts the storied Kentucky Derby (see p. 795), the Keeneland Race Course, in Lexington, is the South’s most beautiful track, with elegant limestone grandstands and a tree-shaded setting. Watch workout sessions that begin at dawn, then breakfast at the Track Kitchen.
To experience Kentucky hospitality at its best, visit quaint Harrodsburg, which is the state’s oldest town as well as the home of Kentucky’s oldest family-owned and -operated inn, the renowned Beaumont. Today the three-story 1845 Greek-Revival inn draws visitors from far and wide for its hickory-smoked country ham dinners and Gen. Robert E. Lee cake, a four-layer orange-lemon wonder. Food is also the draw at the 19th-century Shaker Village at Pleasant Hill, where you can overnight and dine by candlelight on the impeccably restored 3,000-acre grounds.
The nearby town of Berea is an idyllic Appalachian arts and crafts center, where hundreds of potters, painters, and other artisans live and work. Stroll the tree-shaded streets or the campus of Berea College, a tuition-free school where traditional handicrafts have been taught since 1893. College students help run the handsome Boone Tavern Hotel and Restaurant, a gracious 1909 landmark that offers comfortable rooms and hearty Kentucky classics, like spoonbread and chess pie, and updated dishes like blue cheese grits.
WHERE: Lexington is 75 miles east of Louisville. VISITOR INFO: www.visitlex.com. KENTUCKY HORSE PARK: Tel 800-678-8813 or 859-233-4303; www.kyhorsepark.com. KEENELAND RACE COURSE: Tel 800-456-3412 or 859-254-3412; www.keeneland.com. When: 3 weeks of racing in both Apr and Oct. BEAUMONT INN: Tel 800-352-3992 or 859-734-3381; www.beaumontinn.com. Cost: from $120; dinner $25. SHAKER VILLAGE: Tel 800-734-5611 or 859-734-5411; www.shakervillageky.org. Cost: from $100; dinner $35. BOONE TAVERN: Tel 800-366-9358 or 859-985-3700; www.boonetavernhotel.com. Cost: from $140; dinner $30. BEST TIMES: Apr and Oct for Thoroughbred racing; May, Jul, Oct for Berea crafts fairs; Jun for the Kentucky Horse Park’s Egyptian Arabian horse show and annual Festival of the Bluegrass weekend.
America’s Great Homegrown Spirit
THE BOURBON TRAIL
Kentucky, U.S.A.
Thanks to native corn and limestone-rich springs. Kentucky makes about 95 percent of the world’s bourbon, its unique flavor defined mostly by the charred white-oak barrels where it is aged a minimum of 2 years (6 to 8 years for small-batch premium brands).
Bardstown is the de facto capital of Bourbon Country, with its cluster of seven distilleries open for guided tours, including Heaven Hill Distilleries’ Bourbon Heritage Center; Jim Beam, 12 miles west; and Maker’s Mark, the nation’s oldest working distillery (1805), 17 miles south. World-famous Wild Turkey and Four Roses are 40 miles east of Bardstown near Lawrenceburg, and Labrot & Graham, established in 1812 in nearby Woodford County, produces an elixir that has been praised by everyone from Walt Whitman to Mark Twain.
Bourbon buffs are drawn to the annual Kentucky Bourbon Festival in September for its mix of live music, tastings, and lots of Kentucky hospitality. The Oscar Getz Museum of Whiskey traces American whiskey production from pre-colonial to post-Prohibition years with its displays of moonshine stills and even Abe Lincoln’s liquor license.
Founded in 1780, Bardstown offers a number of nonalcoholic diversions. My Old Kentucky Home State Park includes a golf course and Federal Hill, the 1812 plantation that inspired Stephen Foster’s folk tune “My Old Kentucky Home.” Guests who travel aboard the My Old Kentucky Dinner Train are served gourmet fare in 1940s-era railcars while crossing the state’s beautiful countryside. More nostalgia can be found across the street from Federal Hill at Kurtz Restaurant, which has been dishing out comfort food since 1937. Three generations of the Kurtz family kee
p loyal guests happy; many folks come just for the biscuit pudding with bourbon sauce. Or stop in the atmospheric Old Talbott Tavern, the oldest stagecoach stop in Kentucky, dating back to 1779. It’s the perfect spot to savor a shot of the local elixir.
Maker’s Mark’s historic warehouses each hold 4,000 barrels of bourbon.
WHERE: Bardstown is 40 miles southeast of Louisville. VISITOR INFO: www.visitbardstown.com. HEAVEN HILL: Tel 502-337-1000; www.bourbonheritagecenter.com. KENTUCKY BOURBON FESTIVAL: Tel 800-638-4877 or 502-348-2999; www.kybourbonfestival.com. When: 6 days in mid-Sep. OSCAR GETZ MUSEUM: Tel 502-348-2999; www.whiskeymuseum.com. MY OLD KENTUCKY HOME: Tel 800-323-7803 or 502-348-3502; www.parks.ky.gov. MY OLD KENTUCKY DINNER TRAIN: Tel 866-801-3463 or 502-348-7300; www.kydinnertrain.com. Cost: dinner $75. KURTZ RESTAURANT: Tel 502-348-8964; www.bardstownparkview.com. Cost: dinner $15. OLD TALBOTT TAVERN: Tel 800-482-8376 or 502-348-3494; www.talbotts.com. Cost: dinner $25. BEST TIMES: Apr–May and Sep–Oct, especially during the Bourbon Festival.
Run for the Roses
KENTUCKY DERBY
Louisville, Kentucky, U.S.A.
“This Kentucky Derby, whatever it is—a race, an emotion, a turbulence, an explosion—is one of the most beautiful and violent and satisfying things I have ever experienced,” wrote novelist John Steinbeck.
Billed as “the greatest two minutes in sports,” the Kentucky Derby is the oldest continuously held sporting event in America and one of the most prestigious races in the world. Although horse racing in Kentucky goes back to 1789, Louisville’s Churchill Downs didn’t officially open as the home of the Derby until almost 100 years later. By tradition, up to 20 three-year-old Thoroughbreds vie to be the winning horse draped with a blanket of red roses, its owner taking home the $2 million purse.
The two-week Kentucky Derby Festival that precedes the race attracts more than 1.5 million people annually when the Bluegrass State’s dogwoods are in magnificent bloom. Thunder Over Louisville, the largest annual fireworks display in the country, kicks things off, followed by more than 70 events (most of them free), including hot-air balloons, the Pegasus Parade, and an old-fashioned steamboat race on the Ohio River.
During Dawn at the Downs, beginning the Saturday before the Derby and continuing through Thursday of Derby Week, visitors enjoy a Kentucky-style buffet breakfast while watching celebrity equines train. Finally, Oaks Day, held the day before Derby, is when crowds pack the paddocks, grandstands, and infield to celebrate the Kentucky Oaks and other races. If you can’t afford grandstand seats for the big day or haven’t purchased tickets months in advance, you can join the legions who fill the 40-acre infield. You won’t see much of the race, but the mint julep–fueled crowd promises a good time. Or, if you have missed the Derby season entirely, relive the excitement at the Kentucky Derby Museum, then check into the Seelbach Hotel, open since 1905. Guests have included F. Scott Fitzgerald, who set a scene from The Great Gatsby here. Book a table at the hotel’s opulent restaurant, the Oakroom, which was once a billiards room that hosted the likes of Al Capone.
The Kentucky Derby marks the first leg of the Triple Crown.
INFO: Tel 502-636-4400; www.kentuckyderby.com. Cost: Grandstand seats from $172 (written requests must be received before Nov of previous year); standing-room-only general admission tickets sold the day of the race, $40; Kentucky Oaks general admission $25. When: 1st Sat in May. KENTUCKY DERBY FESTIVAL: Tel 502-584-6383; www.kdf.org. KENTUCKY DERBY MUSEUM: Tel 502-637-7097; www.derbymuseum.org. SEELBACH HOTEL: Tel 800-333-3399 or 502-585-3200; www.seelbachhilton.com. Cost: from $180 (off-peak), from $270 (peak); Derby weekend prices upon request; dinner in Oakroom $45. BEST TIMES: late Apr–early May for Derby events; late Apr–early Jul for racing; late Oct– Nov for fall meet.
A Gumbo of Pleasures in America’s Least American City
THE FRENCH QUARTER
New Orleans, Louisiana, U.S.A.
Melding French, Spanish, Italian, and Afro-Caribbean cultures, New Orleans is a city that is at once elegant and debauched. And while it has profoundly changed since Hurricane Katrina in 2005, the Big Easy has shown formidable resilience.
Many of the city’s myriad pleasures are packed within the lively grid of streets that make up the Vieux Carré (aka the French Quarter). It is New Orleans’s most touristy area, yet also its heart. The French laid out the Quarter’s 90 blocks of narrow streets in the 1720s, and the Spanish—who ruled during the mid- to late 18th century—further developed it. Indeed, despite its name, the neighborhood looks more Spanish than French.
Wherever you stroll, you risk sensory overload, from jazz on boisterous Bourbon Street to the smell of café au lait and beignets (deep-fried dough dusted with powdered sugar) wafting from Café du Monde in Jackson Square. Decatur Street offers souvenir stands, offbeat boutiques, and charming restaurants. It’s also home to Central Grocery, an old-fashioned Italian deli whose claim to fame is having perfected (some say invented) one of the city’s classic sandwiches, the muffuletta. Royal and Chartres streets are your best bets for upscale shopping. Be sure to pop into the tacky but fun Pat O’Brien’s to sample their Hurricane, a fruity—and potent—rum cocktail in a glass shaped like a hurricane lamp.
Charming Soniat House is comprised of 30 antiques-filled rooms in a cluster of three 19th-century Creole town houses overlooking an interior courtyard garden where guests breakfast on warm biscuits and homemade preserves. For a big-hotel experience, and a big dose of history, it’s hard to beat the lavish 600-room 1886 Hotel Monteleone. Stop by its revolving circus-themed Carousel Bar for a Sazerac cocktail before dinner. The Windsor Court, arguably the finest hotel in the Big Easy, is known for its palatial accommodations, award-winning restaurant, the Grill Room, and museum-quality art collection—yes, that’s a Gainsborough.
St. Louis Cathedral, the country’s oldest continuously operating cathedral, faces Jackson Square.
VISITOR INFO: www.neworleansonline.com. PAT O’BRIEN’S: Tel 504-525-4823; www.patobriens.com. SONIAT HOUSE: Tel 800-544-8808 or 504-522-0570; www.soniathouse.com. Cost: from $240. HOTEL MONTELEONE: Tel 800-535-9595 or 504-523-3341; www.hotelmonteleone.com. Cost: from $100 (off-peak), from $190 (peak). WINDSOR COURT: 888-596-0955 or 504-523-6000; www.windsorcourthotel.com. Cost: from $190 (off-peak), from $350 (peak); dinner at the Grill Room $50. BEST TIMES: Jan–Feb or Mar for Mardi Gras season; Mar–May and Oct–Nov for pleasant weather; early Apr for the 3-day French Quarter Festival; Christmas is magical and often overlooked.
The Essence of New Orleans High Society
THE GARDEN DISTRICT
New Orleans, Louisiana, U.S.A.
The epicenter of New Orleans high society and its architectural apogee, the Garden District was settled in the 19th century by wealthy Anglo-Saxons (as opposed to the Creoles living in the French Quarter), and many of their stunning Greek Revival, Second Empire, and Italianate mansions still stand.
Tour companies lead narrated rambles, describing the homes of many illustrious residents past and present, such as Sandra Bullock, Archie Manning, and novelist Anne Rice.
New Orleans has long been famous too for its above-ground burial vaults, or “cities of the dead.” Visit the Lafayette Cemetery No. 1 with a guide from Save Our Cemeteries. (The group also gives tours of St. Louis Cemetery No. 1, opened in 1789 on the outskirts of the French Quarter, where Marie Laveau, the 19th-century Voodoo Queen of New Orleans, rests.)
Across the street from the Lafayette Cemetery, Commander’s Palace, housed in a frothy turquoise-and-white Victorian and run by the Brennan family, has been drawing crowds since 1880. Chef Tory McPhail serves a daring mix of old-school Creole cuisine and more innovative fare, and fans come for the Jazz Brunch, a weekend tradition. Casamento’s, the Garden District’s other favored haunt, is an old-timey family-run seafood joint established in 1919. Stop in at lunchtime for its fresh-shucked Gulf oysters or fried-oyster loaf, with a bowl of delicious gumbo to start.
VISITOR INFO: www.neworleansonline.com. HOW: Historic New Orlean
s Tours, tel 504-947-2120; www.tourneworleans.com. SAVE OUR CEMETERIES: Tel 504-525-3377; www.saveourcemeteries.org. COMMANDER’S PALACE: Tel 504-899-8221; www.commanderspalace.com. Cost: dinner $45; jazz brunch $39. CASAMENTO’S: Tel 504-895-9761; www.casamentosrestaurant.com. Cost: lunch $12. BEST TIMES: Mar–May for blooming gardens; Oct–Nov for cooler temperatures.
Laissez les Bons Temps Rouler
MARDI GRAS
New Orleans, Louisiana, U.S.A.
Mardi Gras would be heaven without the multitudes of half-lit partygoers, but it also wouldn’t be Mardi Gras, America’s biggest, liveliest, and most showstopping party. Its larger-than-ever crowds provide a raucous heartfelt confirmation that post-Katrina New Orleans has bounced back with a vengeance.
Months before the late-winter festival, preparations begin with the creation of elaborate costumes and two- and three-story floats crescendoing during the 12-day leadup to Mardi Gras itself. Mardi Gras, which means “Fat Tuesday,” is the day before Ash Wednesday; it ushers in the 40 days of the somber Catholic period of Lent that culminates with Easter. Brought by French colonists to New Orleans in the 1700s, the event soon fused with the African and Caribbean traditions of the city’s black population, eventually becoming as much a show to reap tourism dollars as a revered local tradition. Arrive early to stake out a spot along the parade routes of St. Charles Avenue and Canal Street, amid a sea of carnivalistas demanding “throws”—trinkets, doubloons, and coveted necklaces tossed by float-borne revelers. Of the many parades that begin in earnest two weeks prior to Fat Tuesday, the biggest and best take place on the days leading up to the big event.
VISITOR INFO: www.mardigrasguide.com. WHEN: Jan to Fat Tuesday (Feb or Mar).
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