The plush hotels, glass office blocks, skywalks and shopping malls of Lexington's city center, set in a dip on the Bluegrass Downs, crowd in on fountain-filled Triangle Park . Despite its age, the city has few buildings of architectural interest; the early merchants threw up mostly functional structures, preferring to get on with making money. The redbrick, ivy-covered buildings of small 1780 Transylvania University are behind the Courthouse at N Broadway and Third Street (the name means "across the woods," an appropriate description of Kentucky at the time). On the other side of downtown, the University of Kentucky Art Museum , in the Singletary Center for the Arts at Rose Street and Euclid Avenue (Tues-Sun noon-5pm, Fri noon-8pm; free; tel 859/257-5716) displays contemporary American art and Native American artifacts.

The best photo opportunity comes in the form of Thoroughbred Park , at Main Street and Midland Avenue, an impressive life-size bronze sculpture of a horse race in progress.

Downtown Lexington

• Downtown Lexington

Kentucky cities


All U.S. city guides