Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
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Memphis
Memphis doesn't just attract tourists. It draws pilgrims. Music-lovers lose themselves to
the throb of blues guitar on Beale St. Barbecue connoisseurs descend to stuff themselves
psychotic on smoky pulled pork and dry-rubbed ribs. Elvis fanatics fly in to worship at the
altar of the King at Graceland. You could spend days hopping from one museum or histor-
ic site to another, stopping only for barbecue, and leave happy.
But once you get away from the lights and the tourist buses, Memphis is a different
place entirely. Named after the capital of ancient Egypt, it has a certain baroque ruined
quality that's both sad and beguiling. Poverty is rampant - Victorian mansions sit beside
tumbledown shotgun shacks (a narrow style of house popular in the South), college cam-
puses lie in the shadow of eerie abandoned factories, and whole neighborhoods seem to
have been almost reclaimed by kudzu and honeysuckle vines. Memphis' wild river-town
spirit reveals itself to visitors willing to look, and wherever you wander, you'll quickly
feel the open-hearted warmth of the people.
