Appalachian Heritage: Blue Ridge, Currahee Mountain & Madison Antebellum

A 26-mile excursion train from Blue Ridge to McCaysville/Copperhill on the Tennessee border — the Blue Ridge and Tennessee River Railroad originally built to serve the copper mines at Copperhill, now running through North Georgia mountain scenery in open-air cars. The trip includes a layover in the twin border towns for shopping and lunch.

Ellijay is the apple capital of Georgia — the surrounding orchards have operated since the 19th century, and the farm stands, cider operations, and apple festivals make the Ellijay valley the most productive orchard country in the southern Appalachians. The downtown has developed a gallery and artisan food scene that fits the mountain setting.

A well-regarded North Georgia vineyard in the Cartecay River valley — the Vidal Blanc and the Norton (an indigenous American grape) are the standout bottles. The tasting room faces the vineyard and the Blue Ridge foothills.

The Cohutta Wilderness is the second largest wilderness in the eastern United States — 37,000 acres of southern Appalachian hardwood forest with an undisturbed canopy that reaches heights not seen elsewhere in Georgia. The Rich Mountain loop trail enters the wilderness above Ellijay and provides ridge-top views across the Blue Ridge front.

An Ellijay restaurant celebrating North Georgia mountain ingredients — local trout, free-range beef from Blue Ridge farms, and seasonal vegetables from the Ellijay valley. One of the most considered kitchens in North Georgia.

Camp Toccoa was where the 506th Parachute Infantry Regiment — Easy Company among them — trained before D-Day. Currahee Mountain (Cherokee for 'stands alone') rises 1,735 feet above the camp; the regiment ran to the summit and back as part of basic training ('Three miles up, three miles down'). The museum documents the Camp Toccoa training program and the subsequent combat record through the Band of Brothers story.

The 3-mile route to the Currahee summit follows the original training run path — past the concrete platform of the original Camp Toccoa parade ground, through second-growth forest, to the summit where communication towers now stand where the Easy Company ran in the 1942 summer heat. The view north across the upper Savannah River valley is wide.

The Savannah River reservoir at the Georgia-South Carolina border has a long shoreline of forested coves accessible by kayak from the Lavonia area. A quiet afternoon paddle after the Currahee hike.

Elberton is the Granite Capital of the World — the town quarries and ships more finished granite than anywhere else in the world. The museum documents the geological origins of Elberton granite (the world's largest deposit of blue-gray granite), the quarrying technology, and the monument industry that has built Elberton's economy. The adjacent granite yard has full-size monuments in various stages of production.

A short detour south toward Madison brings you to Juliette, where the movie Fried Green Tomatoes was filmed. The actual Whistle Stop Café serves fried green tomatoes, chicken pie, and Southern sides in a converted 1920s building on the Ocmulgee River. A Georgia institution.

A 1905 Classical Revival building housing the Morgan County Historical Society — the definitive collection of Madison antebellum domestic artifacts, including plantation-era silver, quilts, and portraits documenting the families whose houses survived Sherman's March. The docents are among the most knowledgeable local historians in Georgia.

Madison has the most intact antebellum streetscape in the South — a consequence of a town delegation that allegedly met Sherman's army and negotiated the town's preservation in November 1864. The Greek Revival, Italianate, and Federal homes on Main and Academy Streets represent every major antebellum domestic style, many with their original outbuildings intact.

Housed in an 1895 Romanesque Revival schoolhouse, the MMCC is both a local history museum and an active arts center. The history galleries document Madison's role in the Creek and Cherokee displacement, the plantation economy, the Civil War, and the 20th-century farm county culture.

A Madison lunch institution in a renovated 1830s commercial building — chicken salad, pimento cheese sandwiches, and homemade pie in a dining room that has been feeding locals since the Eisenhower era.

A CCC-era state park 15 minutes from Madison with a spring-fed beach, hiking trails, and a golf course on the rolling Piedmont landscape — the park name comes from a Cherokee place name (Utsanaliyi, 'hard labor') for the creek that was difficult to ford.