Historic Louisville

Saturday
Today we visited the historic side of Louisville, starting with a guided tour of the area known as Old Louisville. During the Southern Exposition, a series of World Fair-like events held from 1883 to 1887, the historic preservation district in Louisville, known as Old Louisville, was a bustling hub of innovation that attracted people from around the world. In the evenings, the grand spectacle was illuminated by thousands of incandescent electric lightbulbs, Thomas Edison’s miraculous new invention. At the conclusion of the Southern Exposition, the grid resulting from the fair was followed by the construction of a grand new neighborhood of elegant mansions spreading across about 40 blocks, in a range of styles. This area is now the largest contiguous area of Victorian architecture in the nation. Old Louisville also features the largest collection of pedestrian-only streets of any U.S. neighborhood. Eleven such "courts", where houses face each other across a grass median with sidewalks, were built in the neighborhood from 1891 to the 1920s, the first to be built and the most well known are Belgravia Court and Fountain Court. It is such a beautiful area, and looking at its very best in its Spring glory. Being a couple of hours south from us, Spring was a little further advanced, with most trees already green, or in the process of greening up, and dogwoods and other trees and shrubs in bloom. Having finished the tour, we returned to walk the latter stretch of it again, as there were more photos I wanted to take. Some of these grand mansions are now elegant B &B’s, a couple are museums, a few are law offices, some have been tastefully restyled as apartments, but many are still individual dwellings.
From there, we went to explore Cave Hill Cemetery, a 296-acre Victorian era garden Cemetery and arboretum, including a National cemetery, housing several thousand Cicil War victims. It is also the final resting place for Mohammed Ali, and Colonel Sanders, founder of Kentucky Fried Chicken, amongst other Louisville notables. I’ve put a second collage in extras.
We left Louisville late afternoon to drive home, stopping for dinner at Wild Ginger, one of our favourite Asian restaurants in the Hyde Park neighborhood of Cincinnati.