Welcome to Louisville - the 16th largest city in the U.S. and the largest city in Kentucky! Louisville is home to over 90 attractions and thousands of excellent hotels and restaurants. Whether you are planning to visit Louisville for business or pleasure you will find thoroughbred horse racing, bluegrass music, sporting events, and much more.

Downtown Louisville Hotels offers great rates on over 50 hotels in Louisville's downtown district. All of our hotels have been approved by AAA and the Mobile Travel Guide, the authorities in hotel inspection. All hotels offer a generous savings off of regular hotel rack rates. Book securely online for great rates on hotels in downtown Louisville!

Downtown Louisville Hotels
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     hotels in Louisville KY!
Attractions in Louisville
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Holiday Inn Louisville - Downtown
Our guestrooms are generously appointed with cable TV and wireless access to our free high speed internet. The hotel also features a full service restaurant and lounge, an indoor pool, a new fitness facility, gift shop, business center and game room for the kids. Our hotel also has free on-site parking and free shuttle service available within a 3 mile radius and upon availability to 4th St. Live, Kentucky Fair & Expo Center, Kentucky Int'l Conv. Center and other downtown restaurants. …more

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About Louisville

For 10 days each spring Louisville is an arena of glamour and festivity as the city anticipates and witnesses the Kentucky Derby on the first Saturday in May. The oldest continuously held horse race in the country, the Derby pits the world's best 3-year-old Thoroughbreds in a 1.25-mile race for a purse of more than $600,000 and a chance to become the winner of the coveted Triple Crown of racing.

Louisville is much more than a horse-racing town, however: It also is a cultural and industrial center. Its repertory theater is nationally recognized, its orchestra has its own recording label, its performing arts are nourished by an unusual public funding program and its industries lead the country in the production of paint and varnish, synthetic rubber and, most of all, bourbon.

Louisville is located on a plain adjacent to the falls of the Ohio River. Named in honor of Louis XVI of France, the first permanent settlement on the site was established in 1778 by Col. George Rogers Clark, accompanied by 120 soldiers and 20 families. Fort Nelson, named after Gov. William Nelson of Virginia, was completed in 1782. A plaque at the corner of 7th and Main streets commemorates the establishment of the city and the fort.

Louisville's growth was directly related to westward expansion. The Ohio River was a conveyor of both people and commerce. The portaging of goods around the falls contributed heavily to the settlement's early economy. In 1830, when the Portland Canal opened the way for river traffic from Pittsburgh to New Orleans, Louisville was catapulted from a frontier outpost into an important station of the New Orleans commercial empire.

The city is known for producing more than half of the world's supply of bourbon. Cigarettes and electrical appliances are other major products. Louisville's stud farms are noted for Thoroughbreds, American saddle horses and Morgans. From a business standpoint Louisville's location has attracted many corporate offices, and its facilities draw trade shows, conferences and conventions.

The city's downtown has undergone extensive redevelopment. The Riverfront Plaza and Belvedere is an urban plaza and park; on one plaza wall is a one-story stained-glass window depicting 200 years of the city's history.

On the education front, the University of Louisville, with an enrollment of more than 21,000, has three campuses throughout the metropolitan area. The Belknap Campus, 3 miles from downtown, contains seven of the university's 11 schools; the university's medical campus and hospital are in downtown Louisville; and the Shelby Campus is in eastern Jefferson County.

As it plies the waters of the Ohio, The Belle of Louisville is a constant reminder of the city's river history even as it offers views of the ever-evolving metropolis. Both are definitive of the Louisville that, like the bourbon it produces, is a smooth blend--a tasteful mix of new with old, big city with small town and high-tech industry with gracious living.