A bar with a fish tank and a room with a view

Road-Tripping with Greg: Monday Night in Louisville  

Greg and I really do enjoy taking little trips together, even if the car ride isn't always harmonious. This trip was actually my Christmas present from Greg. One thing both of us enjoy is staying in unique, historic, or fancy hotels. Back in 2009, we stayed at the Palmer House in Chicago. We wanted to find a neat hotel like that in Louisville, and remembered the hotel where we'd stopped for lunch last summer. It's called The Galt House Hotel, and when we looked up the rates, it seemed out of our league at $225 per night.

My procrastination and internet perseverance paid off in this case. Two days before we left, I surfed around looking for hotel deals, and I found a deal at hotwire.com. For $82, we got a king sized room at a four star hotel in downtown Louisville. The website wouldn't tell us the name, but I can be a risk taker, so I made the reservation. Guess at what hotel we won our mystery reservation? Yup. The Galt House Hotel, the official hotel of the Kentucky Derby.

We liked the design of the hotel, and the neat little touches.

The lobby was pretty, with this fancy schmancy chandelier.

The hotel consists of two towers connected by a conservatory walkway. We stayed on the nineteenth floor of the Rivue tower, on the left in the above picture. Our room was comfy, with a nice big bed and pretty striped wallpaper, but what we really went bonkers over was the view. We could see the river and much of downtown Louisville.

Here's our hotel room. Pretty typical, but. . .

. . . the framed artwork had a definite Kentucky theme. Check out Greg's reflection in the picture. It spooked me out when I first looked at it. 

The hotel was lovely, but I think our favorite part was the conservatory. I love light, plants, and animal life, and this conservatory had all three. There were hanging plants in the windows. . .

. . . a beautiful birdcage in the center, and plenty of light.

We had drinks at the bar here, and then went out to dinner at a little place a few blocks from our hotel. We found this horse in front of it.

Our dinner at Bistro 301 was very good, thought I filled up on this yummy calamari. Here's a picture of Greg contemplating the calamari. Oh, and here's the link to my Yelp review.

I tried to take a picture of this ad for the wine I was drinking. The wine was delicious, and I wanted to remember the info about it. I'm not sure why Greg was staring gloomily at me while I snapped it.

We went back down to the bar in the conservatory after dinner, and I ordered a mixed drink for the first time in ages. I ordered a vodka-cranberry juice and gulped when I saw the bartender put in way more vodka than cranberry juice.

The bar in the conservatory was downright awesome. The bar itself was an aquarium, saltwater I believe, with fish swimming underneath.

I was fascinated by the fish swimming around. I got a real kick out of the snacks on the bar, as well: pretzel goldfish, of course. This is the first time I can remember being at a bar after ten p.m. in a really, really long time. It was pretty fun.

I did indeed drink my entire drink. Why not? This was my vacation! I slept very, very well that night. How could you not, with this kind of view?