Experience the best of Winston Salem

Winston-Salem was formed in 1913 from two towns: Salem, founded by Moravian settlers in 1766, and Winston, which grew rich from tobacco. Old Salem is a restored Moravian town of brick and half-timbered houses, a tavern and craft workshops where costumed interpreters work. The Reynolds Building of 1929, an Art Deco skyscraper said to have been a model for the Empire State Building, stands downtown.

Reynolda, the 1917 estate of a tobacco magnate, now holds a museum of American art and formal gardens, and Wake Forest University has its campus in the city. The Arts District along Trade Street fills old warehouses with galleries. Pilot Mountain, a rock knob rising above the plain, lies to the north, and the Yadkin Valley wine country and the Blue Ridge Parkway are within a drive.

Moravian cookies, paper-thin spiced wafers, and Moravian sugar cake are the town's own sweets. Lexington-style barbecue, pork shoulder with a vinegar-and-tomato sauce and red coleslaw, comes from a town not far to the south-west. Autumn colour spreads through the Blue Ridge foothills nearby.