A stormy weekend in Atlanta
It’s October, I’m in Chattanooga, and a hurricane is coming. That means it’s probably not a good weekend for camping and hiking in the Smoky Mountains. So what’s the next best option. How about exploring Atlanta? And that’s what we did.
We got an airbnb in the Ansley/Piedmont Heights neighborhood, and despite being completely unfamiliar with Atlanta, it turned out to be a great location and everything we wanted to do was close by.
First and most importantly, a little breakfast on Saturday morning. I loved the concept of Callie’s Hot Little Biscuit, with different flavors of tiny biscuits and sides available to go with them. But the biscuits were rock solid, nothing fluffy about them, so a huge disappointment for me. I would love to give them another shot the next time I’m in the area though.
We went to the Atlanta Botanical Garden in the morning, before it got too crowded and started raining hard. They were operating at limited capacity with timed tickets. It’s a very nicely manicured garden and they had a fun Alice in Wonderland display going on.
After our stroll through the garden, it was time for some lunch, so we headed to Ponce City Market, highly recommended by our Airbnb host. It’s a cool old building that’s been refurbished. There are some shops, but most importantly, there’s food hall and lots of indoor and outdoor seating.
Right behind the Ponce City Market was access to the Beltline Trail. So we walked a bit until our parking ran out.
In the afternoon, we stopped at Martin Luther King, Jr. National Historical Park and strolled around looking at the sites from the outside. Nothing was open, but you can see his birthplace and the other historic homes in the neighborhood.
And then it was nap time, which was good timing, since the rain from the hurricane really started to pick up. For dinner, we got takeout from Empire State South. Everything was really flavorful and I thoroughly enjoyed it - smoked catfish dip, pear and arugula salad, trout with hoppin john and tomato broth, and chocolate and pecan trifle.
The next morning after the heavy rain was pretty much done, we stopped at Buttermilk Kitchen on our way out of town for breakfast. They were very busy and parking was pretty crazy, but we were able to place a takeout order and get our food pretty quickly. I very much enjoyed this biscuit. It was a little crispy on top and soft inside.
