Experience the best of Birmingham

Birmingham sits in a valley at the southern end of the Appalachians, where coal, iron ore and limestone lay close together, and was founded in 1871 as a railroad and steel town, named after the English industrial city. Vulcan, a 56-foot cast-iron statue of the Roman god of the forge, stands on Red Mountain above the city, and Sloss Furnaces, a preserved blast-furnace works, is a National Historic Landmark.

The Birmingham Civil Rights Institute, opposite Kelly Ingram Park and the 16th Street Baptist Church, tells the story of the 1960s struggle for racial equality in the city. The Birmingham Museum of Art, the Botanical Gardens and the Barber Vintage Motorsports Museum, with its huge collection of motorcycles, are other stops. Oak Mountain State Park, the largest in Alabama, lies south of the city, and Cheaha State Park, the state's highest point, is to the east.

Meat-and-three lunches, smoky barbecue, fried chicken and Gulf seafood are the staples, with peaches from the farms south of the city in summer. Summers are hot and humid, spring brings dogwood and azaleas, and autumn weekends belong to college football.