Alabama Tourist Attractions  

"Must See Tourist Attractions in Alabama."     

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Alabama, home to 4.4 million people, is of great relevance in U.S. history - from antebellum homes of the Confederacy to places that are etched in memories of the 1960s. Alabama boasts various landscapes from wooded canyons to idyllic ocean beaches. In Confederacy, visit the U.S. Space and Rocket Center. This plays an integral part in the national aerospace program. Birmingham, Alabama's largest city, offers the Civil Rights District and Birmingham Botanical Gardens. Located in the center of Alabama is the state capital. Montgomery was pivotal in the civil rights movement of the 1960s - to evoke this era visit the Civil Rights Memorial. The attractive port city of Mobile and the Gulf Coast are located in the southern part of Alabama on the glorious Gulf of Mexico. Visit the USS Alabama Battleship Memorial Park, Mobile's Historic District and relax on the phenomenal beaches at Gulf Shores and Orange Beach. Further along the coast from these resorts is historical Fort Morgan.

ATTRACTIONS

Mountains   Metropolitan   River Heritage   Gulf Coast   National Parks

Mountain Attractions

Ave Maria Grotto - The Ave Maria Grotto, known throughout the world as 'Jerusalem in Miniature', is a beautifully landscaped, four-acre park designed to provide a natural setting for the 125 miniature reproductions of some of the most famous historic buildings and shrines of the world.

Animal House Zoological Park - The Animal House Zoological Society Sanctuary is home to 300 animals from more than 100 different species.

Pond Spring and Joe Wheeler Home - Located near Courtland, Alabama, Pond Spring (The Wheeler Plantation) was home to Joseph Wheeler, former Major General of Cavalry of the great Confederate western army, The Army of Tennessee (and briefly held the rank of Lieutenant General near War's end), also a long-time U.S. Congressman following the Civil War, and (yet again) U.S. Army Major General during the Spanish-American War.

Huntsville Botanical Garden - Located near the US Space and Rocket Center, the Huntsville-Madison County (Alabama) Botanical Garden merges the timeless beauty of nature with the technology of the surrounding scientific community. Explore the beautiful specialty gardens, tour the Exhibit Hall, and participate in a variety of educational opportunities.

Sci-Quest - Sci-Quest, the North Alabama Science Center Inc., is a non-profit, hands-on science center for children of all ages. Currently Sci-Quest is home to over forty interactive exhibits, all volunteer built, which demonstrate basic principles of science.

Jesse Owens Memorial Park & Museum - The Jesse Owens Memorial Park & Museum features a Welcome Center, Statue, Museum, a 1936 Torch Replica, Jesse Owens Home Replica, Gold Medallion Court, Picnic Pavilions and lots more.

Early Works Museum Complex - Home of the Early Works Children's Museum, Historic Hustville Depot, Alabama Constitution Village and Humphreys Rodgers House.

Huntsville Museum of Art - The nationally-accredited Museum fills its seven galleries with a variety of exhibitions throughout the year, including prestigious traveling exhibits and the work of nationally and regionally acclaimed artists. The Museum’s own 2,300-piece permanent collection also forms the basis for several exhibitions each year.

North Alabama Railroad Museum - At the North Alabama Railroad Museum, you will find a facility reflecting a love of trains and a desire to preserve railroad history. Over twenty seven pieces of major rolling stock have been preserved including both freight and passenger equipment and three historic locomotives (one off-site).

U.S. Space & Rocket Center® - The U. S. Space & Rocket Center® in Huntsville features the greatest collection of rockets and space memorabilia anywhere.  The center is also home of the  "U.S. Space Camp".

Metropolitan Attractions

Aliceville Museum - The Aliceville Museum and Cultural Arts Center is a unique experience. It is the only one of its kind in the whole world, dedicated to a time when the world was at war. In their center you will find artifacts of German Prisoners of World War II. Letters, uniforms, objects of art, statuary, sculpture, photos, and books of this fascinating era of world history.

DeSoto Caverns Park - Named in Honor of Spanish Explorer Hernando DeSoto Who Visited the Area in 1540, DeSoto Caverns Park offers 12 outside attractions, 12-story caverns larger than football field, guided tour with sound, laser light and water show, Cave Crawl Box, Wall Climb, Happy's Hoops, Water Dodge, Wacky Water Golf, maze and more.

Center for Cultural Arts - The Center for Cultural Arts is home to 3 changing exhibition halls featuring regional and national exhibits plus 72-foot model of Gadsden with working railroads. Restaurant, summer outdoor concert series, special year-round performances and the Imagination Place Children's Museum.

Birmingham Botanical Gardens - The Birmingham Botanical Gardens offers 67 acres containing more than 25 display gardens, a largest clearspan greenhouse, Beaty Hanna Horticulture & Environmental Center with a plant diagnostic lab.

Music Hall of Fame - The Alabama Music Hall of Fame is dedicated to honoring Alabama’s music achievers. The hall of fame features memorabilia from careers of Alabamians such as Tammy Wynette, Lionel Richie, Emmylou Harris, the group ALABAMA, The Commodores, Nat King Cole, W.C. Handy, Hank Williams and more.

Southern Environmental Center - Visit the new Interactive Museum (TIM), a two story environmental showcase which challenges visitors to slide down a giant Sewage Pipe, lift a week's worth of garbage, and identify the sources of air pollution on a moving city scape model.

International Motorsports Hall of Fame - International Motorsports Hall of Fame features more than 100 racing vehicles and memorabilia dating back to 1902.

Heart of Dixie Railroad Museum - A visit to the Heart of Dixie Railroad Museum is your special ticket to the past when railroads were shaping the destiny of the country. Turn back the clock forty or more years as you ride one of our historic trains consisting of passenger cars built between 1910 and 1950 pulled by early, first generation diesel electric locomotives.

American Village - The mission of The American Village Citizenship Trust is to strengthen and renew the foundations of American liberty and self-government through citizenship education. Village Green features Washington Hall (inspired by Mount Vernon), Colonial Courthouse, President's Oval Office, exhibits and exciting programs.

Alabama Museum of Natural History - Experience the natural diversity of Alabama through exhibits from the Age of Dinosaurs, the Coal Age, and the Ice Age. View extensive collections of geology, zoology, mineralogy, paleontology, ethnology, history, and photography.

Mercedes-Benz Visitor Center - Experience the history of Daimler-Benz. The story is chronicled in the Mercedes-Benz Visitor Center, the first of its kind outside Germany. This architectural showcase, adjacent to Daimler's only U.S. automobile manufacturing plant, brings to life the company's vision - to produce nothing less than the most exceptional automobiles in the world.

Alabama Theatre for the Performing Arts - The Alabama Theatre was built in 1927 by Paramount Studios as an Alabama showcase for Paramount films. The Alabama Theatre now hosts many live events, as well as films.

Birmingham Zoo - The Birmingham Zoo features more than 900 rare and exotic animals in natural outdoor settings and indoor exhibits.

Alabama Jazz Hall of Fame - The Alabama Jazz Hall of Fame makes its home in the historic Carver Theatre for the Performing Arts. The museum honors great jazz artists with ties to the state of Alabama. Exhibits convey the accomplishments of the likes of Nat King Cole, Duke Ellington, Lionel Hampton and Erskine Hawkins and the music that made them famous.

VisionLand Theme Park - VisionLand Theme Park features a waterpark, children's area and thrill rides in 4 themed areas.

Berman Museum of World History - The Berman Museum exhibits over 3,000 objects related to world history in five galleries. The collection was that of Farley L. and Germaine K. Berman, both who served in counterintelligence during World War II. They met in North Africa and traveled the world collecting rare and unusual artifacts for more than seventy years.

Southern Museum of Flight - Explore the miracle of flying! Take off to the Southern Museum of Flight where visitors can view eight decades of aviation history through aircraft, engines, models, and memorabilia of some of the greatest aviation pioneers of all time!

Birmingham Museum of Art - The Birmingham Museum of Art is one of the largest municipal museums in the Southeast and one of the premier regional art museums in the country. The collection features more than 21,000 works spanning the history of art from 5,000 B.C. to the present.

Ruffner Mountain - Ruffner Mountain Nature Center is an oasis of green space in the midst of Alabama's largest city. Walk or hike through woodlands on a 10-mile network of trails, watch for hawks in the sky and lizards in the woods, explore the sites of now-abandoned iron ore mines and a former limestone quarry and learn about natural and industrial history.

Rickwood Field - Rickwood Field is the world's oldest ballpark. The ballpark was completed in 1910 and was home of Birmingham Barons, Birmingham Black Barons, and Oakland A’s farm league teams. Today, Rickwood Field is being restored to the dazzling diamond of its early days.

McWane Center - Plunge into Deep Discovery and learn about more than 50 species of saltwater life; explore the mysteries of space in the Challenger Learning Center; experiment with the building blocks of science in ScienceQuest; and surround yourself with larger-than-life images and amazing sound in the IMAX© Dome Theater.

Renaissance Art Gallery - The work of nationally known folk artists is displayed along with the work of contemporary and traditional artists from across the country including paintings, leaded glass and sculpture, all original and one of a kind. Subject matter ranges from purely abstract to local landmarks.

Children's Hands-On Museum of Tuscaloosa - The Children's Hands-On Museum is a unique educational institution that exists to stimulate the curiosity of children, ages 2-12 years, about themselves and their place in the world.

River Heritage Attractions

Montgomery Zoo - The most exciting zoo in the Southeast, complete with 500 animals representing over 150 species - all in a barrier free, natural environment and divided into continents featuring Australian, Asian, African, and North American realms.

Mann Wildlife Learning Museum - The Mann Museum and Outdoors lets you get closer to wildlife than you ever thought possible. The museum includes one of the nation's finest collections of professionally presented North American wildlife. Bear, wolf, moose and much, much, more, all in displays that allow you to view them from all sides.

National Voting Rights Museum & Institute - The National Voting Rights Museum & Institute offers pictorial history of voting rights struggle. Displays exceptional record of events and participants that made Civil Rights history.

Landmark Park - Experience history on an 1890's living history farm, complete with an old farmhouse, smokehouse, cane mill, syrup shed sheep, goats and pigs. Drift back in time in a Victorian gazebo, a one-room schoolhouse, a drugstore/doctor's office, a country store or a turn-of-the-century church. Landmark Park also features an interpretive center and planetarium.

Adventureland Theme Park - Adventureland Theme Park is a family-oriented mini theme park featuring 2 18-hole miniature golf courses, figure-8 go-cart track, bumper boats, large arcade, video & novelty games, bungee trampolines, batting cages and more.

W.A. Gayle Planetarium - The W.A. Gayle Planetarium features over 200 theater style seats and is one of the largest Planetariums between Atlanta and New Orleans. See displays from NASA, and visit the Planetarium Gift Shop.

Montgomery Museum of Fine Arts - For seventy years, the Montgomery Museum of Fine Arts has been a showcase for the visual arts in Central Alabama. A primary focus of the Museum's mission is collecting and preserving works by some of history's best known, and some of the region's best loved, artists.

Old Alabama Town - Old Alabama Town features a collection of over forty restored Alabama structures depicting life in the 19th and early 20th centuries.

Farley Nuclear Visitors Center - Learn more about electricity and nuclear power. Farley Nuclear Visitors Center provides entertaining and educational exhibits about electricity and how nuclear energy is produced.

Pioneer Museum of Alabama - The Pioneer Museum of Alabama features more than 18,000 artifacts to show you how early settlers lived in Alabama. Visitors can see an authentic wood burning-style locomotive, Native American artifacts, a working smoke house, an actual log crib from the 1850s, Civil War memorabilia, and more.

Dothan Area Botanical Gardens - The Dothan Area Botanical Gardens is 50 acres of partially wooded, gently rolling landscape in southeast Alabama.

U.S. Army Aviation Museum - Visit the largest collection in U.S. Extensive archives on U.S. Army aviation. The museum also features exhibits, military airplanes and helicopters.

Gulf Coast Attractions

Mobile Museum of Art - There are more than 6,000 works of art spanning two thousand years of cultural history in the permanent collection of the Mobile Museum of Art. The highlights of the collection include American art of the 1930's and 1940's, 20th century works by Southern artists, art of the French Barbizon school, contemporary American crafts, and American art of the late 19th century.

Bragg-Mitchell Mansion - Surrounded by a grove of stately live oaks, the Bragg-Mitchell Mansion is one of the Gulf Coast's grandest Antebellum Mansions. When it was built in 1855 by Judge John Bragg, the home was the center of the lively social life of the cotton port of Mobile. Today the mansion is the most photographed building in Mobile and offers a rare glimpse life as it was lived in the Old South.

Saenger Theatre Performing Arts Center - The Saenger Theatre Performing Arts Center was built in 1927. The center hosts national and international performers, Broadway musicals, orchestras and more.

Wildland Expeditions - Scenic tours of wetlands, saltwater marshes, wildlife narration. Swamp tours: See alligators, eagles and other swamp wildlife.

El Cazador Museum - Among the artifacts on display is a unique breech loading cannon, a rare find for any shipwreck, the ship's bell, bronze sword handles as well as many specimens from the mint shipment of silver coins ( reales), also known as pieces of eight. These are just a few of the artifacts and treasure salvaged from El Cazador. All on display for your viewing pleasure.

Marietta Johnson Museum - The Marietta Johnson Museum, located in Fairhope, Alabama, is dedicated to one of its most remarkable citizens, the revolutionary educator who founded her school here in 1907. The museum offers books, literature, artifacts, photos and videotapes pertaining to progressive philosophy of Marietta Johnson's School of Organic Education.

Adventure Island - Adventure Island offers 218-hole adventure-style mini-golf courses, go-karts, laser tag, large family arcade, paddle boats, snack bar, virtual reality roller coaster and race car, kiddie rides, remote-controlled boats and much more.

Waterville - Waterville U.S.A., the ultimate in family fun, is a 20 acre Water Park and Amusement Park located in the beach resort community of Gulf Shores, Alabama.

Bellingrath Gardens and Home - Bellingrath Gardens and Home offers 65 landscaped acres. Visitors can also tour the Bellingrath Museum Home or explore Ecological Bayou Boardwalk.

USS ALABAMA Battleship Memorial Park - At Mobile’s Battleship Memorial Park, you don’t have to look very far to find heroes. From the mighty USS ALABAMA to the Submarine USS DRUM and 23 combat aircraft, the spirit of military pride is alive and well. Voyage through time and revisit an era of adventure and bravery as you tour the many exhibits.

Dauphin Island Park and Beach Board - Dauphin Island features a beach, historic Fort Gaines, the Audubon Bird Sanctuary, Dauphin Island Pier, Cadillac Square and more.

National Parks

Horseshoe Bend National Military Park - On the morning of 27 March 1814, General Andrew Jackson and an army of 3,300 men consisting of Tennessee militia, United States regulars and both Cherokee and Lower Creek allies attacked Chief Menawa and 1,000 Upper Creek or Red Stick warriors fortified in the "horseshoe" bend of the Tallapoosa River.  In a peace treaty signed after the battle, both the Upper and Lower Creeks were forced to give the United States nearly 20 million acres of land in what is today Alabama and Georgia. The victory here brought Andrew Jackson national attention and helped him to be elected the seventh President of the United States in 1828. This 2,040-acre park preserves the site of the battle.

Little River Canyon National Preserve - Little River flows for most of its length atop Lookout Mountain in northeast Alabama. The river and canyon systems are spectacular Appalachian Plateau landscapes any season of the year. Forested uplands, waterfalls, canyon rims and bluffs, stream riffles and pools, boulders, and sandstone cliffs offer settings for a variety of recreational activities. Natural resources and cultural heritage come together to tell the story of the Preserve, a special place in the Southern Appalachians.

Russell Cave National Monument - Russell Cave National Monument is an archeological treasure containing evidence as to how prehistoric Indians lived in the Southeast for almost 10,000 years. Virtually, no other place in the region holds such a rich record offering clues to how prehistoric Indians fed, clothed and protected themselves.

Selma to Montgomery National Historic Trail - In an effort to dramatize the need for voting rights legislation, a peaceful non-violent march from Selma to Montgomery was planned. On March 7, 1965 the march set out from Brown Chapel AME Church in Selma, Alabama. Once the marchers reached the Edmund Pettus Bridge, they were brutally beaten by law enforcement officers. The event was televised all across the nation. Two days later, Dr. King led a second march from Brown Chapel towards Montgomery; this march was peacefully turned around at the point of confrontation. On March 21, 1965 a third march under the protection of the National Guard began at Brown Chapel once again and successfully made its way to the State Capital in Montgomery in five days, after walking 54 miles. This monumental event captured by news media brought the struggle of voting rights of African Americans to the forefront of this nation's conscious. As a result, Congress rushed to enact legislation that would guarantee voting rights for all Americans. President Lyndon B. Johnson signed the Voting Rights Act on August 6, 1965.

Tuskegee Institute National Historic Site - In 1881, Booker T. Washington became the first principal of a newly formed Normal School for Negroes in Tuskegee, Alabama, at the age of 26. This began a lifelong quest for excellence that over saw the Growth of Tuskegee Institute.

This week's Alabama article

Enjoy Coastal Life With Gulf Shores Vacation Rental
by: Sylvestor Johnson

Gulf shores are situated in the Baldwin country, Alabama, United States. It is one of the major seaside resorts in the state of Alabama. Gulf shores have a moderate and mild season all the 12 months. But still, gulf shores is something little more than hot sun and discovering Gulf Shore in our own manner will be surely an excitement. Gulf shore is famous for its attractive beaches, golf courses, a certain historical monuments which definitely will take you to the past and lastly, most adventurous, its water sports.

Gulf shores definitely will help you in bringing your fancies into a reality. It is also right to say that gulf shore is absolutely appropriate, whether you a thrill seeker or a peace seeker. That is, if you are a peace seeker then walking besides the shore with your feet wrapped in white sand will be a nice experience for you, isn’t it? On the other hand, for thrill seekers there are many places such as Waterville, kamikaze waterslides where there is wave rides in the 25000-square-foot wave pool. Another place is Adventure Island with golf courses, rides etc.

Then after such an exciting and adventurous day, you definitely need a place to live where there is comfort of home and also have cost effectiveness factor. And fortunately, these two factors are available in Gulf Shore vacation rentals. Gulf Shore vacation rentals will surely make the place of destination with an environment of home. That is, a rental home with kitchen, living room, dining room where not only you can enjoy but you can also invite your friends for enjoyment in such homely environment at Gulf Shore vacation Rental. Other than talking about rooms available it also serves amenities such as television, washers, dryers, DVD players and many more. In other words, golf shores vacation rental is a complete paid home at Gulf Shores.

Gulf shore vacation rentals are easily available but you are only required to search for the agent or traveling agencies offering vacation rental. Researching will also help you in comparing the rates of the different vacation rentals. And, finally choosing that place of accommodation which suits the needs fits in the pocket and obviously the located at the place of your preference.

Definitely, through accommodating at gulf shore vacation rental, you will able to save an amount of money as they are cheaper as compare to other mode of accommodation.

Gulf Shores vacating rentals is vacating home where you will be able to get relax and adventure which further will let you forget all the worries of life.

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