Continuing where I left off with recapping our trip to Atlanta last year…
Today, I’m recapping our second day exploring this city. Even though we were technically in the ATL to celebrate my birthday, I booked us a bike tour of Atlanta for Charles.
Our Euro honeymoon circa 2014, where we did our first ever bike tour experience Amsterdam followed by another bike tour in Barcelona a few days later, lit a spark inside Charles for bike riding.
(Me, not so much. Too much time on a bike makes my wawa very uncomfortable. I just do it because it makes Charles happy, a worthy sacrifice.)
As a result, now every trip we go on, we make a point to schedule a bike experience.
But first, and always, sustenance..
In preparation for our “exercise tour” (as I like to jokingly tell Charles, there’s nothing leisurely about bike tour lol), we needed to load up on some calories.
So we walked about 15 min. from our Airbnb to the Atlanta Breakfast Club, a top rated restaurant via Yelp in the downtown area. No reservations for brunch, it’s first come first serve so get there early.
^^ Happy to finally be seated after a 30 minute wait, we deferred our dining choices to our super endearing waitress who recommended her favorites off their menu.
Here’s what we ordered:
^^ Salmon Croquettes (bannng!) with creamy grits and some greenery on side. It came with a house remoulade sauce that really set the croquettes off. Forgot to take a photo but there was also a side order of breakfast potatoes on the table somewhere.
^^ Peach cobbler french toast a.k.a. dessert for breakfast! This dish was sooooo rich but soooo good. The only thing that felt like “too much” on the plate was the powdered sugar but it was easy enough to take the excess off of the plate, so no complaints.
Bellies full and satisfied, we closed out our tab and transitioned to the main event of the day…. Our 8 mile “Fall In Love With Atlanta” bike tour with Bicycle Tours of Atlanta annnnd fall in love, we did.
We lucked out with a small bike tour group. Four people total including our tour guide when typically they have tour groups of 10; perks of booking on an off-season weekday. As a result, our experience was intimate and overall felt non-touristy… With the exception of our uniform neon green bike helmets that screamed “tour group” lol.
For 2.5 hours, we biked through and explored the Atlanta Beltline, Inman Park, Little Five Points, the Krog Tunnel, Jackson Street Bridge, Cabbagetown, The Old Fourth Ward, Oakland Cemetery and the King Historic District.
All the while, our tour guide, Tim, would drop snippets of history and interesting facts about Atlanta and it’s different cultural locales.
Below are photos we took while cycling around Atlanta on a perfectly warm, overcast Spring day.
Scroll on down at your own leisure and I’ll catch you at the bottom with a few closing words (i.e. paragraphs).
Before this bike tour, the main historical fact I knew about Atlanta was that it was Martin Luther King, Jr’s hometown and the setting for many pivotal moments in the Civil Rights Movement. But I was completely unaware of the strong, somewhat personal ties between this city and the Coca Cola Company. Also, the Oakland Cemetery is, by far, the most prettiest cemetery I’ve ever seen! (If you’ve been following this space for a long while, you know I love me a good cemetery during the day.)
I learned sooooo much from our tour guide Tim (a legit walking Atlanta encyclopedia of fun and fast facts) and came away with a newfound respect and appreciation for this city’s struggles and resilience and the creative cultural hubs of innovation that have sprung up in response to its adversities.
Overall, my biggest takeaway from our experience was that the real heart and pulse of Atlanta lies in its out-skirts, the surrounding neighborhoods and communities. After our tour was over, returning back to downtown Atlanta (where we were staying) felt generically corporate and industrial in comparison.
Another takeaway was that Atlanta is a city best explored by wheels, i.e. bike, car, scooter, etc.
While downtown is walkable, in retrospect, this bike tour made us wish we had rented a car for this trip. After the tour was over, we were itching to explore the neighborhoods we had visited during the tour more deeply. We did use Uber and Lyft a few times to travel further distances but it definitely would’ve been more convenient to get around independently, on our own time and dime.
Lessons learned… Next time we visit, we’ll look for an Airbnb in Cabbagetown (hellllooo street art heaven) and rent a car.
And hopefully… Next time will happen sooner than later.
xo, Setarra
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