Lookout Mountain, the Tennessee Aquarium & Bluff View

Point Park sits atop Lookout Mountain at 2,392 feet and marks the site of the 'Battle Above the Clouds' — the November 24, 1863 engagement in which Union forces under General Hooker swept Confederate defenders from the mountain's slopes in swirling fog, opening the way for Grant's assault on Missionary Ridge the following day. The park is administered by the National Park Service as part of Chickamauga and Chattanooga National Military Park, the oldest and largest military park in the United States, established in 1890. Original artillery pieces still sit in their wartime positions along the crest, and the panoramic view from Umbrella Rock and the cannon overlook takes in the full sweep of the Tennessee River's Moccasin Bend and the Chattanooga valley below — the strategic value of the position is instantly legible from this vantage. The Ochs Museum within the park houses a superb collection of Civil War maps and artifacts relating to the Chattanooga Campaign.

Opened in 1895, the Lookout Mountain Incline Railway climbs the steepest passenger railway grade in the world — a 72.7% grade near the top that tilts passengers to a seemingly impossible angle as the cars rise 1,750 feet in elevation over just 4,750 feet of track. The twin yellow cars ride on a single-track system with a passing spur at the midpoint, a feat of Victorian engineering that has operated continuously for over 125 years. The views down into the Chattanooga valley as the car crests the summit are spectacular, and the lower terminal station in the St. Elmo neighborhood is a charming Victorian district with coffee shops and lunch options for the midday stop.

A neighborhood diner at the base of the Incline Railway in the historic St. Elmo district, serving hearty lunch plates of Southern comfort food — meatloaf, chicken and dumplings, fresh vegetables — at excellent value. The St. Elmo district itself is a charming late-Victorian residential neighborhood worth a brief walk before ascending the mountain.

Rock City Gardens atop Lookout Mountain has been a Tennessee institution since Garnet Carter opened it in 1932, and its famous barn rooftop advertisements — 'See Rock City' painted on barns across seven states — became an iconic piece of American roadside culture. The walking trail winds through massive ancient sandstone formations, past native wildflower gardens, along precarious ridgeline paths, and through squeeze-tight passages to the signature 'Lover's Leap' overlook, where on clear days you can ostensibly see into seven states: Tennessee, Georgia, Alabama, North Carolina, South Carolina, Virginia, and Kentucky. The Swing-A-Long Bridge crossing a 180-foot chasm and the underground Fairyland Caverns add to the experience that manages to be simultaneously kitschy and genuinely spectacular.

When it opened in 1992, the Tennessee Aquarium was the world's largest freshwater aquarium — a distinction it held for years and which reflects Chattanooga's remarkable position at the confluence of some of the most biodiverse freshwater ecosystems on earth. The Tennessee River system supports more species of freshwater fish than any river system in North America north of Mexico, and the aquarium's River Journey building traces the river from its Appalachian headwaters to the Gulf of Mexico through a series of immersive tanks that include a four-story canyon of caged river otters, turtles, and over 9,000 fish. A second Ocean Journey building added saltwater exhibits including sharks, rays, and jellyfish. The institution has been central to Chattanooga's celebrated downtown revitalization and sits at the heart of Ross's Landing on the riverfront.

Completed in 1891, the Walnut Street Bridge is one of the longest and oldest surviving metal truss pedestrian bridges in the United States, stretching 2,376 feet across the Tennessee River. Threatened with demolition in the 1970s, the bridge was restored and reopened as a pedestrian walkway in 1993 as part of Chattanooga's downtown revitalization — a project that became a nationally studied model for urban renewal through arts and infrastructure investment. The bridge connects the downtown riverfront to the North Shore neighborhood, and the walk across offers sweeping views of the river, the bluffs, and the mountains beyond.

Dramatically cantilevered over the limestone bluffs above the Tennessee River, the Hunter Museum of American Art houses one of the finest collections of American art in the Southeast, spanning Hudson River School landscapes to Abstract Expressionism to contemporary works. The building itself is an architectural layering of three structures from different eras: an elegant 1904 Classical Revival mansion that served as the home of Coca-Cola magnate George Thomas Hunter, a 1975 Brutalist concrete addition, and a striking 2005 contemporary glass-and-steel expansion that appears to float over the river cliff. The collection includes works by Winslow Homer, Mary Cassatt, Thomas Cole, Georgia O'Keeffe, and Andy Warhol, with particular strength in American landscape painting and glass art.

Perched on the same limestone palisade as the Hunter Museum, the Bluff View Art District is a compact collection of galleries, sculpture gardens, coffee houses, and a bakery housed in a cluster of beautifully restored historic homes. The Rembrandt's Coffee House and the Bluff View Bakery are beloved institutions. The sculpture garden on the river bluff, with large-scale bronze and steel works set against the backdrop of the Tennessee River curving around Moccasin Bend, is one of the most beautiful outdoor public spaces in Chattanooga.

The University of the South at Sewanee occupies a 13,000-acre domain atop the Cumberland Plateau — one of the largest campus footprints of any university in the world — and its Gothic Revival sandstone buildings, built from stone quarried on the plateau itself, create an atmosphere of medieval English academia transplanted to the Tennessee mountains. Founded in 1857 by Episcopal bishops from ten Southern states, the university was burned during the Civil War and rebuilt beginning in 1868; All Saints' Chapel, completed in 1959, is a stunning Gothic masterpiece with 53 stained glass windows. Walk the All Saints' Chapel grounds, the Quad, and the stone-arched Convocation Hall before continuing to the Memorial Cross at the bluff edge, which overlooks a breathtaking panoramic view of the Tennessee River valley far below.

The 60-foot metal cross at the edge of the Cumberland Plateau at Sewanee stands as a memorial to university alumni killed in the World Wars and frames one of the most commanding views in Middle Tennessee — the plateau drops away abruptly several hundred feet to the Tennessee River valley below, with the river's wide bends and forested ridgelines visible for 30 miles on clear days. The walk through the forested domain roads to the cross is as pleasant as the destination itself.