When it comes to food, wine, craft beverages, music and the arts the well known and lesser known cater to a range of tastes in the USA. Pam Jones goes on a virtual tour of some American hotspots to find about some of the flavours on offer.
1. If art is one of your great loves, you can't go past "The Met'' (Metropolitan Art Museum) or Moma (Museum of Modern Art) in New York, both world famous for their staggering collections, but the just opened Whitney Museum of American Art offers an incredible display as well, focusing on American art from the 20th and 21st centuries. But don't forget to go west as well: the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art is undergoing a major expansion which will double its exhibition space. The new development is scheduled to open next year.
2. When it comes to food, take your pick from $5 feeds to fine dining. The Loudoun Destination Restaurant Programme in Virginia features 17 restaurants selected through a juried process conducted by a Loudoun tourism industry panel that provide a superlative, unique, quality restaurant experience.
If you feel like some Southern hospitality, try the unbeatable barbecue flavours in places such as South Carolina, where spare ribs take on a whole new significance. Or feel like pizza? New York suburb Brooklyn prides itself on its "Brooklyn eats'' and there are Brooklyn pizza tours to take you to the best
flavours in the neighbourhood. From October 2-4 this year Brooklyn will also host "Cheers NY'', a craft beverage festival featuring beers, wine, spirits and cider produced in New York State, but with a Brooklyn twist.
3. Everyone knows about Californian wine and it's fantastic. But try a tipple from other regions as well: Illinois, Virginia, Loudoun, Niagara, New Jersey, the Hudson Valley and nearby Sullivan County, in the Catskill Mountains, near New York, all offer wine experiences that explore the different flavours of the United States.
4. Mmmm . . . bourbon. To combine road trip and bourbon tastings (draw straws for the sober driver) try the Kentucky bourbon trail for size. As well as the famous main trail, there is also a "sub-trail'' featuring lesser known, more boutique distilleries. And tap into the craft beer movement as well in places
such as Minnesota, Sacramento and Virginia, where boutique breweries pour some of their finest tipples. But for something really different, try the "Breweries on the Railbelt'' craft beer trail on the Alaskan Railroad. About 10 brewing companies between Seaward and Fairbanks will serve you up a cold one.
5. Take your pic from sweet sounds, hard rock and everything in between in the 50 states that make up the USA. Detroit is relaunching itself as "America's Great Comeback City'' and it's not all about cars in the former Ford stronghold. There's an annual Downtown Hoedown festival; Wild Summer Nights
concerts at the Detroit Zoo; a Michigan Renaissance Festival featuring 16th century music, comedy and theatre; the Motown Museum honouring the city's motown history; and a constant calendar of rock concerts: this year the Rolling Stones, Def Leppard, the Beach Boys, Madonna, the Foo Fighters, AC/DC and The Who are but a handful of the acts scheduled. But for the sweet rhythms of a musical anthem I'd like to visit the namesake state of "Sweet Home Alabama''. How can you go past this song? It's reason enough to visit the southern state, where rock, country, gospel, jazz, rhythm and blues all occupy
proud places in musical history, and Alabama artists such as Nat King Cole, Percy Sledge, Wilson Pickett, the Temptations, Lionel Ritchie and Hank Williams are honoured in the Alabama Music Hall of Fame.
