Birmingham mixes arts, golf, charm

• By CYNTHIA V. CAMPBELL
• Travel editor
• Published: May 11, 2008 - UPDATED: 12:05 a.m.

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Birmingham, Ala., built on a foundation of iron and steel, has grown into a multi-faceted town of business, gardens, sports, music, food and arts. Visit this summer and explore all that the city has to offer, plus a generous helping of Southern hospitality.

To start, the Birmingham Museum of Art is presenting a new exhibition, Vanishing Worlds: Art and Ritual in Amazonia, featuring spectacular works from South America’s Amazon Basin.

Some 300 tribes live in the area and maintain age-old ceremonial and ritual traditions central to their cultures. On display in the museum are full body costumes, masks, feather headdresses, body ornaments, baskets, weapons, pottery and textiles.

The objects in Vanishing Worlds are made from materials gathered from the forest, including wood and bark, beetle wings, grasses, shells, seeds, clay and beeswax. The most stunning objects are made with brilliantly colored feathers of some 40 species of birds, including parrots, macaws and herons.

A companion exhibit, Children, Let’s Protect Our Forests, offers paintings by Peruvian children of the Amazon. Related programs include lectures, films and tours.

The Birmingham Museum of Art is recognized as one of the finest regional museums in the United States. It houses a collection of more than 17,000 paintings, sculpture, prints, drawings and decorative arts dating from ancient to modern times. Recently the National Endowment for the Humanities selected a painting from the museum’s permanent collection, Albert Bierstadt’s “Looking Down Yosemite Valley, Califorinia (1865),” as one of 40 American masterpieces that best depict the people, places and events that have shaped our country and tell America’s story.

The Birmingham Museum of Art, 2000 Eighth Ave. N., is open Tuesday-Saturday, 10 a.m.-5 p.m. and Sunday, noon-5 p.m. Call (205) 254-2565.

About 10 miles from downtown Birmingham, the Oxmoor Valley Golf Club is a public 54-hole course that is part of Alabama’s Robert Trent Jones Golf Trail that spans the state. For details on playing Oxmoor, visit http:/www.rtjgolf.com.

Go for the beauty of the Birmingham Botanical Gardens, 2612 Lane Park Road. Open from sunrise to sunset, it features more than 25 display gardens and the largest clear-span greenhouse in the Southeast. Take the kids to the Birmingham Zoo, 2630 Cahaba Road, which contains more than 700 animals and offers a gift shop, train, food and picnic areas.

The Birmingham Civil Rights Institute, 520 16th St., captures the spirit of countless individuals who dared to confront racial discrimination. Permanent exhibits are a journey through the Civil Rights Movement.

Birmingham is also headquarters for Southern Progress, the company that publishes Southern Living, Southern Accents, Cooking Light, Cottage Living and Coastal Living. The company’s influence in the culinary arts spills over into the community.

Tours are offered (by reservation only) on Tuesday and Thursday mornings at 10 a.m. to groups of between 10 and 25 adults. See Southern Living’s test kitchens and photo studios. Call the coordinator, (800) 366-4712.

Stop by chef Frank Stitt’s Highlands Bar and Grill to try superb cookery. And not far away you’ll find Hot & Hot Fish Club, a winner of the 1998 Robert Mondavi Award of Excellence.