Whether a summertime traveler craves warm-weather outdoor entertainment such as live theater or cooler indoor enjoyment such as cavern exploration, he or she is sure to find a way to scratch that itch in Louisville.
The Kentucky city, located a little more than three hours southwest of Columbus, has much to offer visitors when the weather gets warm.
Urban Bourbon Trail
Bourbon Country – the area encompassing the state’s many whiskey distilleries – has been a well-known Kentucky attraction for years.
For the last six years, though, Louisville’s miniature version, the Urban Bourbon Trail has been making quite a name for itself.
Once the Louisville Visitors & Convention Bureau, which oversees the trail, finishes adding the most recent round of approved applicants, the trail will have 34 stops. All of them are restaurants, many located in the downtown area, but getting on the official Urban Bourbon Trail passport means more than just turning in an application.
“They have to have at least 50 bourbons on their menu,” says Christa Ritchie, a marketing communications manager for the bureau. “They also have to have several dishes (with) bourbon infusions.”
A long list of other requirements includes local ownership, bourbo
n flights and cocktails, commitment to staff education on bourbon, and inclusion of bourbon as a core part of the atmosphere.
Stops include fusion restaurant Asiatique, which offers bourbon-braised short ribs and bourbon rice pudding; Doc Crow’s Southern Smokehouse & Raw Bar, which serves an ice cream sundae incorporating bourbon cherries as well as cinnamon pork rinds and candied bacon; law-themed burger joint Sidebar, which serves up the Hung Jury, featuring bourbon mushrooms, onions and beer cheese; and the Vernon Club, a bowling alley with 178 bourbons available.
Passports are available at the bureau or at any trail stop, and each restaurant has a stamp to add. They can also be downloaded from the bureau’s website, www.gotolouisville.com – a necessary convenience due to their popularity.
“We cannot keep the passports in,” says Ritchie.
More: Dining
According to USA Today, Louisville has the second-most locally owned restaurants in the U.S.
- Against the Grain Brewery & Smokehouse: An offbeat microbrewery and restaurant with beers sporting such names as Tickle Me Ale-mo, Covalent Blonde, Tropical Segway Kitten and Raucho Man Randy Beverage
- Cellar Door Chocolates: A small-batch chocolate confectionary offering fudge, barks, bars, truffles and more
- Mark’s Feed Store: A local barbecue chain with 25-plus years of history and a menu full of signature dishes
- Proof on Main: A classy bar and restaurant with artwork curated by the 21C Museum
Fourth Street Live!
Live music, unique restaurants and vibrant nightlife are all part of the package of Fourth Street Live!.
By day, Fourth Street, located in downtown Louisville, offers a mix of bars, restaurants and retail establishments. In the evenings, though, the street itself – along with the stage, covered by an atrium roof – comes alive with a variety of entertainment.
Most of the major musical acts that come to the stage play country music, but organizer
s have been branching out lately, with recent concerts including Fall Out Boy and Neon Trees.
“(Country) is something we’ve slowly tried to transition away from just to get some more acts (and) reach out to other markets that are out there,” says Jason Stephany, marketing manager for Fourth Street Live!.
July entertainment includes a University of Louisville event July 1, Bike Night every Tuesday through the end of August and the Friday Night Live concert series. A World Cup watch party series should also be under way by July, utilizing a 20-foot-by-17-foot video screen.
Among the bars and clubs are PBR Louisville: A Cowboy Bar, an upbeat country bar complete with mechanical bull; the Marquee Bar, which gives off the vibe of a Chicago nightclub; and Tavern on Fourth, which has an impressive line-up of games including bocce ball, billiards and corn toss.
“Fourth Street touches on almost every kind of nightlife entertainment you can think of,” Stephany says.
Restaurants include Brazeiros Churrascaria, a Brazilian steakhouse; Sully’s Saloon, offering Irish pub favorites; and the Maker’s Mark Bourbon House and Lounge, a Southern-inspired steakhouse with a variety of Marker’s Mark whiskey cocktails.
More: Entertainment
- 2014 Artebella Invitational: Through Aug. 2, Louisville Visual Arts Association PUBLIC Gallery
- An Evening with Progressive Rock Band Yes: July 29, Louisville Palace
- Forecastle Festival: July 18-20, Waterfront Park (performers include Outkast, Jack White, Dwight Yoakam, Beck and the Replacements)
- Jane Austen Festival: July 18-20, Locust Grove
Kentucky Shakespeare Festival
Not to be outdone in the arts department, Louisville is also home to the oldest free Shakespeare festival in the U.S.
The 54th season of the Kentucky Shakespeare Festival began in June with A Midsummer Night’s Dream. Henry V continues through July 6, then Hamlet takes the stage July 11-13. All three productions will then rotate through July 27, with the July 26 show being a tripleheader. Love’s Labour’s Lost then runs July 31-Aug. 3, and a rotating repertory of As You Like it, Pericles, King Lear and Women of Will takes place Aug. 5-17.
Though the theater companies that perform at the festival sometimes take Shakespeare’s plays in their own directions, the festival is currently keeping productions as faithful as possible.
“All the language remains the same,” says Rob Silverthorn III, director of operations and marketing for the festival. “We’ll update the sets … or the placement, maybe, but we’re getting back to a more traditional take on everything.”
Shows are always preceded by pre-show entertainment, with a variety of information booths on hand operated by community nonprofits. A partnership with the local food truck association brings meal offerings to the table, and other occasional highlights include jugglers, face-painting and a bookmobile.
All shows take place in the Old Louisville neighborhood’s Central Park, which is the largest Victorian park in the country outside of New York.
Not only is the festival the oldest in the U.S., it’s also one of the longest. This year’s season has a total of 56 shows, all of them free.
“That’s what we’re all about: getting the art to everybody in the community,” says Silverthorn.
More: Arts
- 21C Museum: New exhibition opens July 12
- Kentucky Derby Museum: Featuring Horse Play, equine toys from the last 140 years, through Dec. 31
- Kentucky Museum of Art and Craft: Featuring Second Life, nature and science explored through taxidermy and other uses of the vestiges of animate beings, through Aug. 31
- Louisville Slugger Museum: Featuring Play Ball, Doc!, baseball in Warner Bros. cartoons, through Aug. 2
Louisville Mega Cavern
It’s not your traditional spelunking, but an underground zip line and high ropes course keep the Louisville Mega Cavern interesting all the same.
The massive, 4 million-square-foot cavern differs from many of its brethren by way of its origin. It didn’t begin life as a cave; it began as a limestone quarry.
“In the area, we have a lot of … gorgeous cave systems, but we’re actually a manmade cavern,” says Jennifer Quinlan, Mega Cavern event coordinator.
The aerial ropes challenge – paralleling a similar course at the Louisville Zoo, directly under which most of the cavern is located – has a total of 76 obstacles. Like the zip line, which offers a tour of two to two and a half hours, its underground location means no worries about inclement weather.
“You come across people all the time who’ve been zip-lining … but you don’t come across people who have done it underground,” Quinlan says.
No matter when they visit, though, attendees should dress appropriately. No matter what the weather is like outside, the cavern is about 58 degrees Fahrenheit year-round.
The cavern also offers a tram tour, which covers its history as a mine and as a fallout shelter during the Cuban Missile Crisis as well as its current operations: A storage and recycling facility housed there recycles more tons of waste each year than any other company in Kentucky.
More Activities
- Belle of Louisville: A cruise steamboat that celebrates its 100th birthday in October
- Bernheim Arboretum and Research Forest: A 14,000-acre property offering arts, nature and scientific programming
- Big Four Pedestrian & Bicycle Bridge: A bridge connecting Louisville’s Waterfront Park to Jeffersonville, Ind. across the Ohio River
- Jefferson Memorial Forest: A 6,400-acre forest designated an Audubon Wildlife Sanctuary
Garth Bishop is editor of CityScene Magazine. Feedback welcome at gbishop@cityscenemediagroup.com.
