Chattanooga Recap

2 days, about 26 hours in Chattanooga, Tennessee, and quite a bit to do.

Downtown Chattanooga is a strange place. The water front, along the Tennessee river, is worth a visit and a stroll. Broad and Market streets are the main thoroughfares, and every few blocks they switch between overly quiet and empty, and boutiques hotels and restaurants. The Choo Choo merits a trip though, and possibly even a stay. It's a huge hotel situated in the old train terminal, and some of the rooms are - yes - train cars.

Back to the waterfront: see my photos for the area around the Aquarium. We took a river tour on the Southern Belle, complete with music and some talk of Chattanooga history. The guy giving the talk may or may not have been a random local who bought a white shirt and sewed epaulettes to the shoulders, but anyway he was great.

Chattanooga was a town of subsistence farmers who had two ways of making extra cash: make whiskey from corn and sell it to the towns in other valleys; and sell timber. For the latter they would build rafts out of their surplus logs, sail them down to New Orleans and sell as they went along. At the end, they would walk home. The town became strategic during the Civil War, as the only point at which you could cut through the Appalachians, south of NY state. As our guide put it: once Chattanooga fell to the Union army, the south had no hope.

We only had one night there but I do recommend The Boathouse for dinner. Raw bar and voodoo chicken, and a great deck overlooking the river.

Day two we drove up Lookout Mountain and visited Ruby Falls and Rock City. SPOILER ALERT: If you haven't been I recommend a visit without any prior knowledge, it made my experience a lot of fun.
How the Americans do these things is just unbeatable. It's not just a waterfall underground: it's a waterfall shown with lights and music and this big buildup in the dark. For about 5 minutes you feel like you are in The Goonies.

Both are good fun and worth a visit. The history of Ruby Falls alone is worth learning, and is quite striking when you are in the actual cave. Rock City is a walk up to a lookout point from which, apparently, you can see 7 states. But of course: it's not just a walk to a lookout point. It's a rock trail built with bridges and underpasses and climbing through narrow rocks, botanical viewings and, again, music playing. Gnome gardens, goblin underpasses and a whole Mother Goose underground passage and village lit only by black lights.

Oh and in case you're wondering what put Chattanooga on our radar to begin with, here's one for all the Italians out there.

Flickr album here.