I grew up in the Paducah area--well, an hour south (Fulton,KY and went to
high school in Mayfield, which is 30 minutes from Paduach) . However, its
the only really big town in the region with a mall, so I logged quite a bit
of time there as a teen.
The distillaries--at least all that I know of--are all around Lexington and
Lousiville, both of which are about 5 hours or so from Paducah.
In Paducah, the only real tourists attractions of any sort that I can think
of are the waterfront/downtown, Whitehaven (restored historic mansion), and
Bluegrass Downs (horse racing track). I don't think of these would be an
all day thing. Paducah isn't much of a tourist town. It's more industrial,
with some shopping thrown in, and has the only really big hospitals in the
area... There isn't really much of any touristy stuff in Western Kentucky.
Most of the really cool stuff in Kentucky is back around Lexington and
Louisville. Far far western Kentucky (west of the lakes), just doesn't
have much.
If you can get any access to a car, there are the Kentucky Lakes and the
Land Between the Lakes. It would be about 20 minutes or so from Paducah to
get to the Lakes. Then, at LBL, there is "the trace" which is a road you
can follow and stop off at little attractions along the way. You'd have to
have a car to do this though...
They have been working on building a performing arts center, but I'm not
sure if it's finished yet. (I am currently in California to attend grad
school, so I'm not as up on stuff at home anymore).
Also, worth mentioning here, is that Paducah doesn't have mass city transit.
There are cab services, but no train or bus. It's not a huge town--maybe
60,000 people.
I don't think West KY is particularly known for it's cuisine--it's a very
much so working class region, and not that working class can't be gourmet,
most of them tend not to be. For food in Paducah though, the best regarded
restaurants are Jeremiah's, Whalers Catch, and CC Cohen. Make reservations
though! In addition to the quilt show being in town, it's also going to be
prom season and between the quilt show attendees and prom goers, it's
impossible to get into any of these without reservations.
The BBQ style in West Ky isn't quite like Texas BBQ. We tend to do pork
rather than beef brisket.
You probably already have these urls, but the Paducah/McCracken County
Visitors Buerau has a website at
http://www.paducah-tourism.org/ and the
local paper's url is
www.paducahsun.com. You might also want to check out
http://www.thinkwestkentucky.com. When looking up stuff to do though, be
careful about the Think West Kentucky site. West Kentucky is typically
considered to span from the far west part of the state to
Elizabethtown/Bardstown--both of which are 4 hours from Paducah. I consider
both of them to be central Kentucky, but I digress. When I was attending
the University of Kentucky, my friends from far far eastern Kentucky
considered Bardstown and Elizabethtown to be West Kentucky...
"Bronwyn Ferrier Ms" > wrote in message
om...
> G'day folks,
> Lucky girl that I am, I have another trip to the US from here in
> Queensland Oz.
> You might recall you all gave me great gourmet advice when I visited
> Austin Tx last June which was really helpful.
> This time, I am meeting up with my new friends from Austin and we are
> travelling to the Paducah Quilt Show in late April.
> So, what great advice can you give me on the cuisine of KY and places
> to try in Paducah?
> Also, does anyone know of a day trip I can do from Paducah on a
> Sunday? I'd love to visit one of the distilleries, but fear Paducah is
> too far west to achieve this in one day (without a car at my
> disposal). Any other tourist attraction from there would be nice I am
> sure.
> Meanwhile I am looking forward to those great Tx barbeques!!
> Maybe there is a regular poster who lives in Paducah who would like to
> meet and say hi.
> Cheers Bronwyn