Atlanta

A few blocks of Auburn Avenue hold King's birth home, Ebenezer Baptist Church where he preached beside his father, and the couple's tomb. His recorded sermons play in the old sanctuary, and anyone may sit in the empty pews. The park charges nothing.

An acrylic tunnel runs through the vast tank where whale sharks swim. One wall of it is a window as wide as a cinema screen, and many sit on the floor before it for a long while. On weekday mornings you may have the tunnel nearly to yourself.

A museum to the drink a local pharmacist first mixed in 1886. In the final tasting room you pour freely from around 100 of the company's drinks sold worldwide. Beverly, an Italian aperitif, is so bitter that watching faces after a sip is the room's old game.

The civil rights gallery recreates a 1960s lunch counter sit-in. Sit on a stool, put on headphones and lay both hands on the counter, and for a few minutes abuse is shouted in your ears while the stool is kicked. Many cannot stay to the end.

Old warehouse blocks were cleared for the park ahead of the 1996 Olympics. The Fountain of Rings becomes a summer splash ground for children and changes its jets to music at set times. The aquarium and the Coca-Cola museum sit right alongside.

About 30 minutes east of the city, one granite dome rises out of flat ground. Its north face bears a vast relief of three Confederate leaders that keeps the arguments going. The walk up is about 1.6 km, and the last steep stretch of bare rock has a handrail.

Old freight lines that once ringed the city are becoming a trail, and the Eastside stretch, opened first, draws the crowds. Beside it an old Sears warehouse is now Ponce City Market, a food hall with a small rooftop funfair. Murals line the whole way.

Opened in 1929, the theatre is decorated inside like the courtyard of an Arabian palace. Over the seats a dark sky twinkles with tiny bulbs for stars while projected clouds drift past. In the 1970s it nearly came down, until public fundraising saved it.

The Cyclorama, a circular painting of the 1864 Battle of Atlanta, wraps a wall over 100 metres round. Moved here and restored in 2019, it lost the old narration glorifying the South. Swan House in the grounds was the president's mansion in The Hunger Games.

Opened in 1850, its Victorian monuments and old trees draw locals to stroll as if in a park. Margaret Mitchell, author of Gone with the Wind, is buried here. Few places dating from before the Civil War survived the burning of the city; this is among them.

Richard Meier wrapped the 1983 building in white enamel panels, with angled ramps winding up a sunlit central atrium. Renzo Piano's 2005 wing stands alongside, so you can compare how the two architects handle white.

Laid out on an 1887 exposition ground, with later designs by the Olmsted sons. The Midtown towers lined up across Lake Clara Meer make the city's most familiar photograph. On weekend mornings a farmers market and dog walkers crowd the lawns.

The archive and museum of President Carter, with a full-scale replica of the White House Oval Office. The Nobel Peace Prize medal he received in 2002 is on display. From the Japanese garden pond behind the building you can see the downtown skyline.

The garden adjoins Piedmont Park to the north, and a curving walkway crosses the woods at treetop height. The orchid house is misted to keep it humid, so spectacles cloud over on the threshold. In winter the whole garden is lit up every evening.

A centre devoted to puppetry, opened in 1978 with Kermit the Frog cutting the ribbon. Its permanent galleries hold Muppets and props from Jim Henson's collection, and on weekends the theatre stages puppet shows for children.

A short tunnel under the railway, every inch of wall and ceiling sprayed with graffiti. Anyone may paint over it, so the images change within days. It links Cabbagetown and Inman Park, an easy detour from a walk on the BeltLine.