Advertisement
Published: July 11th 2019
The first thing that we had to get right was the pronunciation of Louisville. It is not as it is written but shortened somewhat to something that sounds like Lureville.
It was great to be in a big buzzy city again although the architecture was similar to the small towns we have been in, just higher. We were berthed a long way out of town as there was a large music and food festival downtown so all the berths there were taken. And of course ours was a late booking.
We heard there was a hotel that had contemporary art in it. It was easy to pick as there was a huge gold statue of David outside. Even larger than he is in Florence. Rows of large red penguins adorn the pediment above the door as well as on the roof, standing proud as classical statues usually do.
If anyone has been to the Sculptureum at Matakana you might recognise the penguins, oversized colourful animals, think pink snails and rabbits. Well here it is penguins. Made of recycled plastic by the same people, Cracking Art Animals.
Inside it was more like an art gallery than a hotel
with some incredible pieces focusing on people’s Labour around the world. A lot of amazing contemporary art comes out of China and it was no exception here.
We were told to make sure we went into the Rest Rooms. In the corridor outside were lots of mirrors of all shapes and sizes which we didn’t think anything of until we went inside and oops, they were two way mirrors. Inside you could see out but outside you couldn’t see in - thank goodness. Ian said it was very disconcerting in the Men’s as the the urinals were placed in front of the mirror!
Another intriguing piece was three smokestacks producing smoke rings. They were very difficult to photograph.
Further along the road was the Frazier Museum which, besides having information about bourbon production had an exhibition on the expedition of Meriwether Lewis and William Clark who were given the job by President Jefferson in 1803 of finding a water route to the Pacific. They were also to foster relations with the Indians and document the landscape, flora and fauna.
18 months later in November 1805 they arrived at Fort Clatsop on the south bank of the
Columbia River. It was an incredibly interesting exhibition.
The Museum was also well up with using technology. A table with a glass top moving touch screen allowed you to choose what you wanted to get more information on.
We came across a factory and museum for making baseball bats. The local team is called the Louisville Sluggers which we thought was a great name.
All in all an excellent day with surprises in Lureville. And we only covered one street!
Advertisement
Tot: 0.086s; Tpl: 0.017s; cc: 12; qc: 31; dbt: 0.0471s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1mb
