Things to do in Louisville

Neighborhood · East of downtown

Several miles of independent restaurants, bars, record shops and bookshops along Bardstown Road and Baxter Avenue, running through a chain of walkable early-twentieth-century neighbourhoods.

Local tip: The strip changes character every few blocks — the Baxter end is the nightlife one, further out toward Douglass Loop is the neighbourhood one. Cherokee Park, one of Frederick Law Olmsted's, is a few streets east and is the best green space in the city.

Culture · South of downtown

One of the largest contiguous districts of Victorian houses in the United States, built for the 1883 Southern Exposition and now a preservation district of turrets, stained glass and pedestrian-only courts.

Local tip: St James Court and Belgravia Court are the walkable heart of it and the Art Show on the first weekend of October is the one day the whole neighbourhood opens up. Conkling and Fountain Courts are quieter and just as good.

Nature · The Ohio riverfront, downtown

Eighty-five acres of reclaimed industrial riverfront, with a disused 1895 railway bridge converted into a pedestrian and cycle crossing straight into Jeffersonville, Indiana.

Local tip: Walking to another state and back in half an hour is the best free thing to do in the city. The park's Lincoln Memorial and the Big Four ramps are floodlit at night, and the whole riverfront is where Louisville actually gathers in summer.

Food · West Main Street, downtown

A row of nineteenth-century cast-iron facades on West Main rebuilt as working distilleries and tasting rooms — Old Forester, Michter's, Evan Williams and Angel's Envy within a few blocks of each other.

Local tip: Old Forester's is the one that actually makes whiskey on site including its own barrels, which is the more interesting tour. Book ahead in Derby week or you will not get in anywhere.

Landmark · South Louisville

The twin-spired racetrack that has run the Kentucky Derby every year since 1875, with a museum attached that is open year-round and includes a walk out onto the track.

Local tip: Go on an ordinary spring or autumn race day rather than in Derby week — the tickets are a few dollars, the paddock is open and you can see how the place actually works. Derby and Oaks are enormous, expensive and nothing like the rest of the season.

Nature · Clarksville, Indiana — across the river

The only natural barrier on the whole Ohio River, and the reason a city exists here at all. At low water it exposes one of the largest naturally exposed Devonian fossil beds in the world, around 390 million years old.

Local tip: Late summer and autumn are when the water is low enough to walk out onto the coral beds. The interpretive centre on the Indiana side explains the geology, and the answer to 'why is Louisville here' is standing on it.