Back to A Month in a Big Cold City

Archives

2016

2015

2014

2013

2012

2011

2010

2009

 


Google Places and Platypie

Don’t Buy a City Pass

We did something in Atlanta we had never done. We bought a City Pass and lived to regret it. It was Forced March Tourism and it hung over our heads every day.  It would have been a bargain if we would have used it all, but be warned you only have nine days to visit all the sites on the pass. Yes, we saved $78.00, but were the attractions on the pass the ones we really wanted to see? Really? NO! Not really.  But “When in Atlanta...

Well, a couple were. We blame some of our failure to tour the purchased sights on the sheets of ice that coated the streets of the city for days. There was no way we could walk  the simple  quarter of a mile from the train yards to The World of Coca-Cola, CNN or the Aquarium. Plus the city closed down.

World of Coca-ColaWorld of Coca-Cola: You’ve gotta hand it to a company that charges you $16.00 per person plus a $10.00 parking fee to watch their commercials and see their old advertisements and look at a lot of giant decorated bottles of Coke. Oh yes and have one’s pictures taken with a guy wearing the 7 foot giant polar bear mascot suit. The security to get into the place was worthy of TSA.

Inside CNN: Missed it completely. Can anything beat the huge rubber embossed sheets used to print The Washington Post when I visited it back in 1950? They even gave each kid a used one.

Georgia Aquarium: Missed this one too due to the aforementioned solid sheet of ice between us and it. Plus who wants to see fish without Liz and Calli?

Yang Yang. Atlanta Zoo PandaZoo Atlanta:  Endangered species carousel.some nice animals, but no clarity on naming them. What kind of giraffe? Zebra? Dolphin? It was also home to the world’s most slovenly panda. Not only were his table manners atrocious, but he got up and took a poop and sat back down in it. Panda at nursing home? Looks cute, isn’t’

High Museum of Art:  Well I hate to say it, but the two spectacular buildings, one by Richard Meier and the other by Renzo Piano were so overwhelmingly exciting that they diminished the mostly second tier works by some of the world’s greatest artists inside. However the folk and outsider art collections were wonderful to look at. Especially Howard Finster’s strange pieces. The Contemporary Art Collection was also a pleasure to look at and interacted beautifully with the Renzo Piano designed space and sky lighted ceilings. It was pleasure to wander through this beautiful space.

Atlanta Botanical Garden: This was friendly and pretty. An orchid show had just opened and various artistic types were photographing and sketching. That means us too.

Atlanta Botanical Garden and Kermit

Two Things: The whole Carter Center and The KIng Center, especially its interactive Freedom Marchers Sculpture were very moving. The Carter Center is coming soon and The King Center will be included in the Civil Rights Piece we are working on.