Guidebooks are annoying. Just because some editor who doesn’t know me tells me which restaurant is the best or what attraction is a must-see doesn’t make it a must-see attraction. Sightseers’ Delight is dedicated to the weird, the quirky and the fun. After all, traveling is fun.
If it’s not, you’re doing it wrong.
All of the places highlighted in this ever-growing database are great. Sightseers’ Delight has visited them all. We think you should make a point to see every one of them. But, this is not a guidebook. Just a webpage to help you plan your next adventure.
Churchill Downs Racetrack in Louisville has been the home of The Kentucky Derby, the longest continually held annual sporting event in the United States, since 1875. Churchill Downs features a series of themed race days during Derby Week, including the Kentucky Oaks, and conducts Thoroughbred horse racing during three race meets in the spring, September and fall. Churchill Downs is located on 175 acres and has a one-mile dirt track, a 7/8-mile turf track and a stabling area. The track provides seating for approximately 60,000 guests, and the stable area has barns for 1,400 horses and a 114-room dormitory for backstretch personnel.
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To run the government and military during World War II, Prime Minister Winston Churchill needed a place safe from German bombing raids. He found that place in a sprawling underground complex today known as the Churchill War Rooms. The complex was operational starting Aug. 27, 1939, a week before Great Britain declared war on Germany. The museum complex offers an incredible, one-of-a-kind look at Winston Churchill and England’s approach to World War II. The complex is home to meeting rooms, bedrooms and map rooms, where the war’s progress was plotted and monitored.
Circus Maximus, which means the largest circus in Latin, was once home to chariot races during Roman times. The stadium, located between the Aventine and Palatine hills, could hold more than 150,000 spectators and was a model for circuses across the Roman Empire. It is today a public park.
The City of Presidents in downtown Rapid City is a collection of life-sized bronze statues representing each former American President. More than 40 bronze President statues, sculpted by six different artists, are located on the street corners of Rapid City.
The city of Woodstock, Georgia, unveiled its memorial to the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks in 2016. The monument includes rail from the Port Authority Trans-Hudson (PATH) subway station below the World Trade Center. The marble monument is inscribed with a quote from President George W. Bush. The monument is part of the Park at City Center in Downtown Woodstock.
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Clava Cairns near Inverness is a well-preserved Bronze Age cemetery complex consisting of passage graves, ring cairns, kerb cairns, and standing stones. It is a significant and exceptional prehistoric site that dates back about 4,000 years. The cemetery was used in two periods, with the first row of large cairns built around 2000 BC. It was reused a thousand years later, with burials placed in some existing cairns. Excavations have found evidence of previous farming on the site. The cairns replaced the settlement, and some materials used to build them may have been taken from demolished houses.
The Clermont Citrus Tower first opened to visitors in 1956. It took 13 months, roughly $300,000, five million pounds of concrete and 149,000 pounds of reinforced steel to build the tower. Counting its antenna, the tower reaches over 500 feet above sea level, making it the highest observation point in the Sunshine State. At one point, more than 500,000 people visited the tower every year. However, the 1964 extension of the Florida Turnpike provided a waste route for motorists and the tower’s popular among travelers began to wane. Then, that roadside oddity called Walt Disney World opened. The rest, as they say, is history.
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Opened in 1965, the Clermont Lounge has the distinction as the first and longest continually operating strip club in Atlanta. The establishment is located in the basement of what was once the Clermont Motor Hotel. As Wikipedia notes: “The Clermont is perhaps best known for featuring some dancers who do not meet the traditional physical standards for strippers, the most famous of whom is Blondie, noted for her ability to crush empty beer cans between her breasts as well as for her poetry.”