Downtown Louisville, Kentucky is located immediately west of 65 over to 9th Street, though some say it extends to 18th where it blends into Russell neighbourhood.

The main street through downtown is conveniently called Main Street. It is alternately known as Museum Row or Whiskey Row, due to its large number of museums, distilleries, and other whiskey and bourbon-related attractions.

We spent a weekend at the 21C Museum Hotel, which is literally an art museum you can stay in. There are a few other 21C locations in the region, but each one has its own local art and designated colour of the brand’s trademark penguins. Louisville’s penguins are red.

Sometimes you will find the life-sized penguins greeting you, almost cheekily, in the elevator. You may find them standing ominously in the middle of your empty hallway at night, or peering at you around unsuspecting corners. It is a bit of a light-hearted game that guests and patrons indulge in.

They can also be found as souvenirs and a recurring motif throughout the property.

The lobby level gallery is open to the public 24/7 and is free to enter.

Guests can also access the lower level’s open gallery by stairs or elevator.

We were delighted with the collection on display during our visit.

The lower level has extra gallery rooms to explore and a massive sculpture swooping down from the ceiling.

One room is completely wrapped in this black-felted neon landscape; a scene from another world.

One of the installations that can be seen from the outside is Ned Kahn’s Cloud Rings;  three furnace-like figures that are set to varying time increments, expelling steam with a comical BOOF sound in a pattern that resembles a Palmier pastry, or mushroom cloud, or jellyfish depending on when you look.

The brick wall to the right of it was the wall behind our bed.

The hotel is full of other interactive art installations like mirror projections and short films.

Even the bathrooms are art installations. The lobby bathrooms have little screens all over the walls and mirrors, projecting close-ups of eyeballs that roll around and seem to follow you.

The men’s bathroom in the gallery is particularly interesting, if not disturbing, but it is art after all.

Instead of individual urinals, visitors basically aim for the wall and it runs into a trough drain on the floor. That wall is made of lookout glass, so anyone inside the bathroom can watch people walk by, but those outside the bathroom only see a mirror.

If you have a phobia of voyeurism, stick to the bathroom in your suite or use the bathroom downstairs.

We discovered yet another gallery inside the hotel on our second day, thinking we had already seen it all.

The biggest surprise of all was that my amazing friend had booked the most incredible suite for the duration of our stay. Taking “sleeping in a museum” a leap further, we got to stay inside an actual exhibit and we were completely awestruck.

Asleep in the Cyclone is a collaboration of artists Jonah Freeman and Justin Lowe. You can rent the room by the night, or ask staff members to see it if it is vacant at the time.

The ceiling is covered with a multitude of different patterns and colours inside wooden triangular frames, backlit in a way that makes you feel like your are inside a Rubiks cube or a stained glass globe.

It has a prominent 1970s theme complete with funky art, a curio full of relics, books, themed sculptures from the artists, and a sometimes-functional record player.

The whole suite is made of varying levels of platforms to climb and crawl over, to get up to the bed, to the record player, to the bathroom, and back again. We felt like goofy kids rolling around and scrambling over edges and heehawing.

There is also a stripper pole, a sunken dining table area, and enough floor cushions to seat a dozen friends. Staff calls it the “Shag Room” and it is definitely accommodating for smaller parties.

It is the only suite on the lower level with direct access to the galleries. No one else was around after midnight, so we had a late night champagne and snack picnic in our satin robes while admiring the art.

Look out for the bedazzled crimson limousine parked near the entrance when you are ready to see the rest of Museum Row.

Frazier History Museum
If you go to Louisville for whiskey and bourbon, your first stop above all else should be the Frazier History Museum. This is the official Bourbon Trail Welcome Center and first stop on the Kentucky Bourbon Trail.

KSC & KMAC
The Kentucky Science Center and the Kentucky Museum of Art are two of area’s most prestigious science and art collections. There are a lot of interactive and hands-on exhibits for all ages and one of the most popular attractions is the massive Lite Brite you can play with.

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