My bruises have bruises. I'm blaming the cheerleading. Review writing is a whole lot less dangerous....
My bruises have bruises. I'm blaming the cheerleading. Review writing is a whole lot less dangerous.
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Cheap flights and the promise of all-you-can-drink Coca Cola lured me to Atlanta, and while not necessarily the best 2 reasons to visit a place, my trip turned out to be good. Georgia is one of the southern states, and Atlanta a southern city in such a state. This means 2 things: hot summer weather, and laid back, friendly natives. While you can't often sum up an entire city's climate or population in such a way, it definitely seemed true here.
I flew into Atlanta, crossed the airport and hopped aboard one of their overland / underground MARTA trains. Within minutes I was entering the center, and less than a quarter of an hour later I had crossed the city and was making my way to the High Museum of Art. This reminded me of a cross between the Guggenheim and the British Museum - funny shaped "artistic" architecture, lots of Ancient Egypt things. They also had traditional art (American and European, 15th Century onwards) and a funky gift shop just off their ground floor atrium. The museum was a pleasant place to visit not least because it was so deserted compared to the big galleries in NYC,
Chicago and D.C. that I've visited. Free audio tours were available with the $7 student / $10 adult admission, and though the scheduled person-guided tour fell through on the day of my visit, it was easy to make your own way around the galleries open to the public.
The CNN Studio Tour was my first stop the next morning. This 45 minute tour takes you behind the scenes at the studios there and depending on the time of your tour, you may be able to watch them filming live. The tour costs about $10 which seems very reasonable considering the wealth of information you receive. You learn about how they put together a show, how often they repeat it on a slow news-day, how teleprompters and so on work. You can have a go at presenting the weather, and learn how they get away with vague hand gestures so their geographical knowledge doesn't have to be too in-depth. It is a walking tour up and down several flights of stairs, so not really suitable for people with mobility difficulties. They may have a disabled option available, but they don't advertise this well if this is the case.
The CNN studios are across from the Olympic park which is a nice, relaxing place to while a way an hour or two if you can cope with the odd person approaching you to check you have the lord in your life. Just a few blocks away are two other major Atlanta attractions: The World of Coca Cola and Underground Atlanta. The first is a large, multi-floor museum about all things carbonated. Or at least all things carbonated made by the Coca Cola company. It's a self guided place where you can take your time looking at the displays, watching the short films, seeing how a live soda shop employee makes up a perfect Cherry Coke and so on. One mini cinema shows the history of the company while another runs a constant loop of several dozen English language commercials from years gone by including that Christmassy "Holidays are coming" one that floods British TV screens every winter. There are cans and bottles from all over the world on display, plus examples of the American style packaging from the very first bottle which was produced ages after the product was first made available in chemist's shops. Admission is $7 for adults, and comes with all the products you can drink at the end of the tour. Huge jets shoot the popular products (Coke, Diet Coke, Sprite etc) several feet up into the air before it lands in your cup, and regular fountain dispensers house the more obscure products from around the world including a ridiculous number of Fanta flavours, Germany's MezzoMix (and orange flavoured coke), lemonades and much more. The cups are tiny, but you can go back for as many refills as you want before you pass through the exit turnstile and end up in the shop, home to all things Coke branded.
Underground Atlanta is a shopping/dining set up below the city's streets. It's not a full blown mall, but it has a food court with enough options to keep the pickiest eaters happy, and has many small specialty shops selling jewelry and toys and arts and crafts. For better shopping, several malls are situated in all directions from the city center - the one I sampled came complete with a movie theater, Lindt and Godiva shops, a great nail salon and several designer and department stores. You might not go to Atlanta to shop, but I had time during my trip, and since the shops in my current US home are a bit pants, I wanted to take advantage of the ones the city had to offer.
I started my 3rd day in the city with a trip to the Martin Luther King Jr. historic site. Here there's a small, free museum dedicated to the Atlanta resident with short films and a few displays. There's also a fountain tomb memorial, and a block away, his birth home which free tours take you round. The tour guide we had was full of interesting info that you wouldn't normally pick up in a book or on a website, and the several Californian families who made up the rest of the small tour group (sizes are limited to 15 at a time) seemed to enjoy it as much as I did. The shops weren't up to much, but having enjoyed the free museum entry and tour, I felt obliged to spend a dollar or two on postcards and so on.
As well as MALU (what they call the famous American dude - not a certain German teacher), Atlanta is famous for being the home of Gone With The Wind author Margaret Mitchell. I've not read the book, but I went anyway, not least to pick up a present for my sister, a big fan, in their gift shop. Since I was there I decided to take their tour too, and spent almost an hour looking at the small displays, seeing a short film and then touring the author's former home with an awesome tour guide about my age who was one of the best group leaders I've ever had. After seeing and learning about the very small apartment Mitchell used to call home, we could read dozens of the letters she wrote and received during her time there, and explored the attached movie museum next door where scenery and costume pieces are displayed among details of the promotion for the film, and the opening night celebrations. If you're a bigger fan than me, you can also visit the Road To Tara museum in a nearby Georgian town.
I left for Atlanta late Friday morning and flew back Sunday afternoon, so it was a whirlwind visit. But in between all the stuff mentioned above I found time to swim in and laze by my hotel's pool, fit in a movie ("Little Black Book" - funny, well-worth watching chick flick), do some shopping, wander the city's streets, pick up a Baltimore-based bloke and try some funky ice cream including cake batter flavour (served to me by someone whose room mate is a former Royal Ballet member Brit) and a cookie dough Blast (the Dairy Queen version of a McFlurry). The city didn't seem to have quite as much going on as Chicago, my weekend destination of two weeks before, but that was ok because it left me time to chill out and soak up the sun. I found it really easy to find my way around the city and didn't even need to pull out my map most of the time because of the frequently occurring and well-placed attraction signs. The underground system runs quickly and often, and none of the attractions I visited were more than 5 minutes walk from a stop, although several were so close together that you could easily make your way from one to the other on foot. Atlanta is a well-visited destination, so is home to numerous hotels in all price ranges. I stayed in a fantastic Travelodge complete with balconies for every room, free breakfasts and an outdoor pool - located in the city center just seconds from a Hilton and a Raddison. I thought Atlanta was a funky place to visit: the locals seemed friendly, the city was compact enough to explore mainly on foot, the climate was appealing and the number of attractions meant it was somewhere you could easily "do" in a long weekend unlike a place like New York where you could be for weeks and not see everything you wanted.
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Advantages: Great weather, lots of trees, culture diversity, nice houses and affordable Disadvantages: Over speeding on highways, can get pretty dry atimes
wailor 13.07.2006 (10.06.2007)
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Ciao members have rated this review on average: very helpful
Review of Atlanta
Advantages: Great weather, lots of trees, culture diversity, nice houses and affordable Disadvantages: Over speeding on highways, can get pretty dry atimes
wailor 13.07.2006 (10.06.2007)
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Read review
Ciao members have rated this review on average: very helpful
Review of Atlanta
Advantages: Great frequent flier scheme, reliable airline that knows what it is doing Disadvantages: Domestic flights rather basic and penny-pinching, no bimbo stewardesses (some might see that as an advantage!)
Aug 27th, 2004
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