LOUISVILLE is known the world over as the home of the Kentucky Derby, but it's much more than a horse-racing town.  Named in honor of King Louis XIV of France, the first permanent settlement here was established in 1778 by Col. George Rogers Clark, whose statue overlooks the Ohio River in the heart of downtown.

We're here for a weekend with Carolina Tours - it's time to kick off the holiday season!



















We stayed at the Galt House, a landmark hotel in the heart of Louisville – overlooking the Ohio River and with easy access to everything – on foot or on the trolley. And of course, it was decorated to the max with Christmas at every turn on every floor.

THE KENTUCKY SHOW is a 30-minute multimedia introduction to the great state of Kentucky, housed in the Kentucky Center for the Performing Arts.  Narrated by Ashley Judd, it was developed by a woman named Sharon Potter after she moved here and wanted to tell people about her new home.  It's a great presentation that captures the spirit of Kentucky's people, sports, and places.

KALIGHTOSCOPE CHRISTMAS is a landscape of larger-than-life, lighted holiday sculptures inspired by the ancient art of lantern-making. 

Chinese artisans from Zigong, China, have crafted each sculpture by hand, using six miles of sheer painted fabrics.  In a giant plastic dome the size of a couple of soccer fields, there are 12 lighted scenes, each a multi-faceted display, with some towering nearly 25 feet high. 

There were lots of Santas - snowboarding, riding in his sleigh full of toys, and even one checking his list of naughty and nice.

And there were toys - teddy bears, dolls, toy soldiers and more.

There was a candy house and a skating snowman.

And the grand finale was a huge nativity scene, with lots of stars and angels floating overhead.

This is no ordinary Christmas light show – we walked through the whole display twice!  Artisans have taken their century-old craft to a magical, monumental scale. Moving parts, amazing colors and unusual building materials come together in one of the most spectacular holiday displays anywhere. 

KaLightoscope Christmas also featured a gingerbread house contest and the world's largest, life-size, handcrafted gingerbread village.  It was created entirely from edible ingredients - including a half-ton of gingerbread, 450 pounds of flour, 2000 eggs, and over 1600 pounds of sugar.  Pretty impressive, but no sampling the merchandise.

THE LOUISVILLE SLUGGER MUSEUM AND FACTORY has been the home of the world-famous Louisville Slugger baseball bat since 1884.  The entrance to this family-owned business is marked by a 120-foot, 68,000-pound bat.

Here we learned all about the Official Bat of Major League Baseball and had a look at Babe Ruth's bat.

We walked through the factory and watched more bats being made - all sizes, shapes, and colors. 

LIGHTS UNDER LOUISVILLE is the only underground light show in the world.  It's located in the Louisville Mega-Cavern, a 100-acre limestone cavern that started out as the home of the Louisville Crushed Stone Company. 

After 20 years of mining, it was abandoned until the early 1990's, when a massive amount of recycled concrete, brick, rock and dirt were off-loaded at the cavern to fill in the holes and create floors and internal roads.  Offices and storage spaces have been carved out and today the Louisville Mega-Cavern is the largest building in the state of Kentucky.

During the Christmas season, the underground passages feature over 500 lit characters with over 1 million lights. We rode through this most unusual display in a little train, accompanied by Christmas music along the way.

DERBY DINNER PLAYHOUSE is the holiday home of the musical comedy, "The Sanders Family Christmas."  First we stuffed ourselves full of food, and then we enjoyed an evening of holiday songs, vintage hymns, and hilarious stories.  A fun way to whet the holiday appetite. 

SCHIMPFF'S CONFECTIONERY is a family-owned confectionery, retail candy store, soda fountain, lunch room, museum, and demonstration kitchen.  The building was erected in the 1860s and has survived three major floodings of the nearby Ohio River.  Markers on the front record the height of the flood waters.   

This little store has been producing handmade candies for over a hundred years and it’s still going strong.  We learned all about it from the fourth generation owners, who still live in the family home above the store.

We watched cinnamon red-hots being made on turn-of-the-century equipment - and helped with taste-testing for quality control.  This is Schimpff's signature piece and has been made here since opening day.

Adjoining the demonstration kitchen is the candy museum, housing thousands of pieces of American candy memorabilia. 

And of course, there's the candy store - a wonderland of bags and jars and boxes of every imaginable shape and color.  We even tried the Modjeskas - caramel-covered marsmallows named after a Polish actress known for her romantic Shakespearean roles.

COLORS OF THE SEASON was the Galt House dinner show that closed out our weekend in Louisville.  More food, more lights, more singing and dancing.

It MUST be Christmas now!