Florence is a hidden gem for history buffs.

✅ Helen Keller’s home

✅ Muscle Shoals – FAME Recording Studios – “When a man loves a woman“, Aretha Franklin

✅ Sheffield – Muscle Shoals Sound Studio – Rolling Stones, Cher, Rod Stewart, Simon and Garfunkel, and oh so many more…

✅ Pope’s Tavern – was originally an ideal stopover for travelers from Nashville to New Orleans in the 1800s. Andrew Jackson stopped at Pope’s Tavern on his march to the Battle of New Orleans. It served as a hospital for both Confederate and Union wounded at Shiloh. On the second floor it is filled with artifacts from the Civil War. We were given a private tour by an elderly southern gentleman who spoke in a soft, lilting voice with words from a bygone era. Most commodius.

 ✅ Enjoyed driving through the historic section of Florence and viewing stately southern homes

And ate lunch in City Hardware – an American diner. Docktails aboard a fellow boater, followed by dinner at Ricatoni’s.

Loving the Alabama way of life… 

Such is life!