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JOURNEYS

Montgomery, Ala.

WHEN the United Daughters of the Confederacy organized a Montgomery branch in 1896, its members named their chapter "Cradle of the Confederacy." Approximately a century later, veterans of the civil rights movement began referring to Alabama, and its capital, Montgomery, in particular, as the "birthplace of the civil rights movement." At a gooseneck bend in the Alabama River, this city of 200,000 , delivers on both claims. A recent spate of museum building and downtown redevelopment has begun to attract cultural tourists, but the transition has not wiped clean the contradictions. Drive south of downtown and, in the shadow of the Martin Luther King Jr. Expressway (Interstate 85), you will pass a sign for Taraland Learning Center. It's just a few blocks west of the intersection of Jefferson Davis and Rosa L. Parks Avenues. John T. Edge

Friday

4 p.m. 1 -- Learning About Hank Hank Williams, who was born near Garland, Ala., is the city's favorite musical son. And the best place to get a bead on the man who, before his death at the age of 29 in 1953, wrote and recorded standards like "I'll Never Get Out of This World Alive," is the storefront Hank Williams Museum (118 Commerce Street; 334-262-3600). View the baby blue Cadillac in which Williams died, a selection of toothpicks pulled from one of his suits, a lime-fringed black shirt custom-made by Nudie's Rodeo Tailors and the saddle from his horse, Hi-Life.

6 p.m. 2 -- Drinks at the Marina Call for directions to Wil's Riverfront Grill at the Montgomery Marina (617 Shady Street, 334-269-4445), and you're still likely to get lost. But a short trek across a web of freight tracks and through the city's industrial areas brings you to the ideal ramshackle perch for a sunset beer. Below are the slips of sailboats and cabin cruisers. In the distance, barges ply the river.

8 p.m. 3 -- Dinner With the Wallaces Oil portraits of Alabama governors line the Sahara Restaurant (511 East Edgemont Avenue, 334-262-1215), a retro-continental restaurant in the Old Cloverdale neighborhood. That's George Wallace in a red sport coat, hovering above Booth 2. His wife Lurleen, who was also governor, is alongside. Ribeyes and snapper are featured, but the best dish on the menu is the West Indies salad ($7.95), a mound of backfin crab and sweet onions, marinated in a vinegary sauce. Keep the evening going at Sous La Terre Downtown Underground (82 Commerce Street; 334-265-2069), a private club set, true to its moniker, in a windowless basement. It usually opens around 11 p.m. and springs to life after midnight when a jazz piano player, Henry Pugh, takes the stage. Guests must apply for membership to enter. Cover charge, for both guests and members, is about $5.

Saturday

9 a.m. 4 -- Curbside Eating Open since 1927, the Montgomery Curb Market (1004 Madison Avenue; 334-263-6445) is an open-air shebang lighted by dangling bulbs and topped by a tin roof. In addition to produce, you'll find a heady array of baked goods. Since 1971, one vendor, Sherrell Smitherman of Verbena, Ala., has been selling buck-a-pop homemade sausage and cheese biscuits, fried peach pies and miniature sweet potato pies. It is open on Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays.

10 a.m. 5 -- Old South Dexter Avenue is only six blocks long, but it's the spine of a route from the site of Jefferson Davis's inauguration to the bus stop where Rosa Parks boarded for her fateful journey. Start an Old South morning atop Goat Hill, at the Alabama State Capitol (600 Dexter Avenue, 334-242-3935), which is ringed by statuary and monuments that honor, among others, Dr. J. Marion Sims, who is called the father of modern gynecology. From the portico, where Davis took his oath as president of the Confederacy in 1861, George Wallace proclaimed in 1963, "Segregation now, segregation tomorrow, segregation forever." On the northern lawn rises a white marble memorial to the Confederacy. Detour one street south of Dexter Avenue and you stand in front of the First White House of the Confederacy (644 Washington Avenue, 334-242-1861), the modest -- and now musty -- Italianate two-story building that Davis and his family called home in the aftermath of secession. Year-round, the gift shop sells Christmas wreaths of cotton bolls. Admission is free.

1 p.m. 6 -- All American Take a lunch break from history at Chris's Hotdogs (138 Dexter Avenue; 334-265-6850), where the timeless American snack comes mustard-slathered and drenched in chili sauce. Snag a stool at the worn linoleum counter where some locals say Hank Williams sat and scribbled lyrics. Hot dogs are $1.60 and fries set you back $1.35.

2 p.m. 7 -- New South Advance to the 20th century, starting at the Civil Rights Memorial (400 Washington Avenue), designed by Maya Lin and commissioned by the Southern Poverty Law Center, the group that bankrupted the United Klans of America. Water emerges from the core of a circular granite table, washing over the names of martyrs of the civil rights movement in what might be interpreted as absolution of the South's sins. Back on Dexter Avenue, the Dexter Avenue King Memorial Baptist Church (454 Dexter Avenue, 334-263-3970), where Martin Luther King Jr. rose to fame as leader of the Montgomery Improvement Association, stands out in red brick among the white masonry of state government buildings. Founded by former slaves in 1877, it now greets visitors with a documentary on its history, shown in a basement decorated with vacation Bible school posters, and a tour of the upstairs sanctuary, where docents say of Vernon Johns, King's predecessor: "If he had led the movement, we'd all be dead; he wasn't one to turn the other cheek." The Rosa L. Parks Library and Museum (252 Montgomery Street, 334-241-8615), at the spot where Mrs. Parks refused to give up her seat on a bus to a white passenger, is a mixture of artwork (a quilt depicts her arrest and fingerprinting) and multimedia displays, including a video recreation of the famous ride, projected so that you can view it through the windows of a restored 1955 Montgomery bus. A historical marker outside tells on one side about Mrs. Parks and on the other notes that Hank Williams once won a talent contest in the theater across the street.

7 p.m. 8 -- Pull the Trigger A shotgun restaurant with a bar on the side and a trophy-size blue marlin arcing across the back wall, Jubilee Seafood (1057 Woodley Road; 334-262-6224) dishes grilled grouper ($20.95) and triggerfish ($18.95) with a choice of garnishes that includes a stellar lemon, caper and garlic sauce. The Key lime pie ($3.75) is a comely whorl of citrus and meringue.

Sunday

9 a.m. 9 -- Brimstone in the Pines Drive about 12 miles north on I-65 and a few miles west on Highway 82 toward Prattville, and take a left on Autauga County Road 86, also called Indian Hills Road. At a bend in the two-lane blacktop, the Cross Garden erupts. Constructed as a testimony of Christian faith by W.C. Rice, who died in January 2004, this folk art environment, set amid gullies rife with castoff appliances, warns, by way of hundreds of painted crosses, "Hell Is Hot, Hot, Hot!" and proves the novelist Flannery O'Connor's observation that the South is a "Christ-haunted" landscape.

10:45 a.m. 10 -- Country-Fried Brunch Wend back into town for an experience closer to the heavenly side. Martin's Restaurant (1796 Carter Hill Road, 334-265-1767) has been frying chickens and baking coconut meringue pies since 1940. It also does right by collard greens, candied yams and string beans. But the best is the simplest: corn muffins. Crisp and steaming with sweet corn flavor, they hit the oilcloth-clad table soon after you do. Plan to spend $10 or so, and plan to arrive soon after they open at 10:45, or you'll spend your Sunday morning in line with the crowds that flock from nearby churches.

THE BASICS Visiting Montgomery

Montgomery, 90 miles south of Birmingham and 160 miles southwest of Atlanta, is served by commuter airlines affiliated with Delta, Northwest and US Airways.

Distinctive hotels are few. The courtyard-style Capitol Inn (205 North Goldthwaite Street, 334-265-3844), which serves as home for some members of the State Legislature during their annual sessions, has a swimming pool, free Wi-Fi access and 90 rooms starting at $53.50. The Embassy Suites (300 Tallapoosa Street, 334-269-5055), with 237 rooms starting at $99, is a stucco rectangle, but it has a great location, downtown, within sight of the Alabama River.

The best bed and breakfast is the almost-too-darn-quaint Red Bluff Cottage (551 Clay Street, 334-264-0056), set high atop the bluff. Its four rooms are $99 to $140.

A version of this article appears in print on  , Section F, Page 4 of the National edition with the headline: JOURNEYS; 36 Hours | Montgomery, Ala.. Order Reprints | Today’s Paper | Subscribe

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