If you're visiting the Bluegrass State, don't miss these!
By Patti Nickell | Contributing Travel Writer
- Kentucky Horse Park
- Keeneland Race Course
- Tour a horse farm
- Shaker Village of Pleasant Hill
- Bourbon distilleries
- Old Friends at Dream Chase Farm
- Kentucky Capitol
- Berea
- Ashland, the Henry Clay estate
- UK men's basketball game
In Kentucky, a state so rich in historic, natural and cultural sights, trying to limit any "must-see" list to only 10 is a difficult task. Even culling the list to those attractions in the state's Bluegrass region is a challenge.
If it's historic pedigrees you want, Lexington's stately mansions are in a class by themselves, having been home to the likes of Henry Clay, Mary Todd Lincoln and John Hunt Morgan, with Richmond's White Hall, home of Cassius Marcellus Clay, also worth a visit. Then there's Camp Nelson, Fort Boonesborough, Danville's Constitution Square, Paris' Cane Ridge Meeting House, and the Perryville Battlefield State Historic Site.
Natural beauty abounds at Lexington's Raven Run Nature Sanctuary and McConnell Springs, Woodford County's Buckley Wildlife Sanctuary and Clark County's Daniel Boone National Forest. Culturally, it's hard to beat Danville's Norton Center for the Arts and Lexington's WoodSongs Old-Time Radio Hour.
Still, after much consideration, we've arrived at a Top 10 list that even David Letterman might find difficult to fault — those Top 10 attractions that define any visitor's Bluegrass experience.
1. Kentucky Horse Park | get directions
If the commonwealth has an ambassador to the world, it is surely the horse. Here, the world can visit horses on their own turf.
On land that was once part of Walnut Hill Standardbred farm, the horse park has emerged as one of the world's most special attractions — a combination working horse farm, educational theme park and equine competition facility dedicated to humanity's love affair with the horse.
That love affair begins at the park entrance (presided over by the statue of one of Thoroughbred racing's legends, Man o' War), continues to the Visitors Center (with its statue of another great Thoroughbred, 1973 Triple Crown winner Secretariat) and peaks at the Hall of Champions, where equine greats live their post-racing lives in regal splendor. The popular Parade of Breeds, self-guided activities and two excellent museums, the International Museum of the Horse and the American Saddlebred Museum, are other features of the park, which will be in the international spotlight in 2010, when it hosts the Alltech FEI World Equestrian Games.
2. Keeneland Race Course | get directions
This National Historic Landmark is arguably the most picturesque and elegant racetrack in America, just brimming with tradition. It has two race meets a year (in April and October), which attract the best Thoroughbreds to its track, but visitors are welcome year-round. You can join owners, trainers and grooms for breakfast and then head over to the track to watch an early morning workout, wander the paddock and beautiful grounds or visit the gift shop.
Keeneland also has several live Thoroughbred auctions, including the Keeneland September Yearling Sales, the richest of its kind in the world. Visitors are welcome to attend the sales.
You can't come to the Bluegrass without paying homage to its most elegant residents. Leaving the area without visiting a horse farm would be a bit like going to Orlando and skipping Walt Disney World. There are about 450 horse farms in the Lexington area, with the majority not open to the public. But a few of the most famous are.
4. Shaker Village of Pleasant Hill | get directions
It's a scene that could be reproduced on a Hallmark greeting card: 2,900 acres of unspoiled, rolling farmland ending at the stark palisades of the Kentucky River.
The undulating hills are unbroken except for stream-laced woodlands, 35 miles of hiking trails and 34 buildings dating back nearly 200 years. The sound of voices raised in a hymn drifts from the Meeting House, and the aroma of home-cooked food wafts from the Trustees' Office.
You could be forgiven for thinking you had stumbled into a time warp here at Shaker Village of Pleasant Hill, the largest restored Shaker community in the United States and the first site in the country to be designated in its entirety as a National Historic Landmark.
The village's self-guided walking tour includes 14 original buildings, highlights of which are the 40-room Centre Family Dwelling with its fine collection of original Shaker furniture and craft objects, and the excellent Shaker Life exhibit in the lower level of the East Family Dwelling. Throughout the village, costumed interpreters talk about Shaker life while working at tasks associated with Pleasant Hill a century-and-a-half ago, such as broom making, spinning, basket weaving and coopering.
Kentucky is almost as famous for its bourbon as for its horses. Visitors to the Bluegrass can sample America's only native spirit at distilleries on the state's Bourbon Trail.
At Woodford Reserve Distillery, a National Historic Landmark on Glenn's Creek, visitors can tour the only distillery still using the traditional copper pot still method of producing bourbon.
Buffalo Trace Distillery in Frankfort has been producing fine bourbon for more than 200 years, making it the oldest distilling site in the United States. In Lawrenceburg, just south of Frankfort, are two of the commonwealth's premier bourbon distilleries: Four Roses, with its distinctive Spanish colonial-style architecture, and Wild Turkey-Austin Nichols Distillery, which has a 40-foot-high column still.
6. Old Friends at Dream Chase Farm
This retirement home is similar to many others. Some of the senior citizens can get grumpy and out-of-sorts. All are past their physical prime — their knees have long since given way to arthritis, their once muscular bodies show the ravages of age and one has even lost an eye.
Still, like most of those living in retirement communities, these old-timers welcome visitors, but unlike most, they're less interested in conversation than the carrots the visitor might offer.
Welcome to Old Friends at Dream Chase Farm, 52 acres of rolling bluegrass farmland just outside Georgetown that has become the nation's first retirement community for Thoroughbreds, a safe haven where they can live out their lives once their racing and breeding careers end.
With about 30 horses in residence, Old Friends is a favorite of visitors of all ages.
7. Kentucky Capitol | tour information
A must-see for every visitor to the Bluegrass is the group of Frankfort buildings that make up the state capitol complex (take a virtual tour).
Start with the Kentucky Capitol building, a beautiful example of the Beaux Arts style of architecture. Its domed rotunda contains marble statues of famous Kentuckians, including Abraham Lincoln and Jefferson Davis, as well as a wonderful collection of dolls depicting each of the commonwealth's first ladies in their inaugural ball gowns.
The Floral Clock directly behind the Capitol has a clock face 34 feet in diameter that is planted with seasonal flowers.
In addition to the new Capitol building, the Governor's Mansion, modeled after the Petit Trianon, Marie Antoinette's summer villa, and the Old Capitol Building, an excellent example of Greek Revival style, with a unique self- supporting staircase, are well worth a look.
This town, a 45-minute drive from Lexington in the Cumberland Mountains, has earned its reputation as Kentucky's Folk Arts and Crafts Capital. In addition to the 25,000-square-foot Kentucky Artisan Center, which features the work of some 650 Kentucky artisans, there are two concentrations of galleries and shops within the town itself. At College Square and Old Town Artisans Village, visitors can watch glass blowers, weavers, woodworkers, jewelry makers and other artists at work and then shop for high-quality Appalachian handicrafts.
Visitors to Berea can take a self-guided walking tour of Berea College, whose students pay no tuition and instead work in the town's various enterprises, then stop for lunch or dinner at Boone Tavern to try its legendary spoon bread.
9. Ashland, the Henry Clay Estate | get directions
In the early 19th century, when most of the country west of the Allegheny Mountains was still frontier, Lexington was a thriving community known as "the Athens of the West" and home to sophisticated, cultured citizens prominent in business and politics including Henry Clay, one of America's greatest statesmen. During his lifetime, Clay served as congressman, senator, speaker of the house and secretary of state and was a three-time presidential candidate.
When he wasn't attending to affairs of state in Washington, Clay was at home at Ashland, his beloved estate in Lexington where he raised corn, hemp, tobacco and cattle. The 18-room Italianate-style mansion, a National Historic Landmark, houses a collection of Clay family items used during the years when some of Clay's guests included James Monroe, Daniel Webster and the Marquis de Lafayette. Many visitors particularly admire the unusual octagonal library and the formal English garden.
If there is one thing Kentuckians are passionate about besides horses and bourbon, it is basketball. That passion reaches fever pitch come winter.
The University of Kentucky Wildcats, the nation's winningest college basketball team and seven-time NCAA champions, attract loyal ticket holders well outside the Lexington area. Though you can probably forget about scoring a seat to watch them play powerhouse rivals, it is sometimes possible to get tickets when the students are on break. Once inside Rupp Arena, you'll really see what it means to be a "true blue" fan.
