CNN Studio Tour
This tour of the world's largest newsgathering organization is lots of fun, and a uniquely Atlanta experience. The CNN Center is headquarters for CNN, CNN International, and Headline News. During 40-minute guided walking tours, visitors get a behind-the-scenes look at the high-tech world of 24-hour TV network news in action.You'll find the tour desk in the main lobby near the base of an eight-story escalator. While you're waiting for the tour to begin, you can have a videotape made of yourself reading the day's top stories from behind a CNN anchor desk. The tour starts in an exhibit area where you'll find timelines covering the history of CNN and Turner Broadcasting, interactive kiosks where you can surf the CNN websites or access clips from the top 100 stories that CNN has covered, memorabilia from some of those events, and a journalism ethics display. A theater that re-creates CNN's main control room allows you to experience the behind-the-scenes elements of a news broadcast.Next, you'll enter a special effects studio and get a glimpse of the technology that goes into the production of global news. Here you'll discover the magic of a high-tech Blue Chromakey system (it's what's used to broadcast that big map behind the weather folks), see how on-air graphics are made, and learn the secrets of the TelePrompTer.On another level, visitors get a bird's-eye view of the main CNN newsroom from a glass-walled observation station. You'll see the hustle and bustle of writers composing news scripts. If a live broadcast is in progress -- and chances are good that one will be -- you can see CNN newscasters at work. Tour guides are knowledgeable and can answer virtually any question.The longer, more extensive VIP tour allows visitors to actually step out onto the main CNN newsroom floor and explore production areas not normally accessible to the public.After your visit, stop by the Turner Store, which carries network-logo clothing and gift items, along with MGM movie paraphernalia. For sports fans, there's the Braves Clubhouse store, featuring the Atlanta Braves logo on every item you can imagine. There are several restaurants and numerous fast-food outlets in the atrium of the CNN Center, as well as a few shops. Keep in mind that this tour includes quite of bit of walking and a very steep escalator ride, which carries you to great heights to begin the tour. Those afraid of heights might want to consider skipping the tour.

Centennial Olympic Park
Centennial Olympic Park, one of the most enduring legacies of the 1996 Olympic Games, is a living monument to the city's memories -- both good and bad -- of that seminal event. Conceived as a town square, it represents the heart of the Olympic effort, the site where everyone flocked to celebrate the games. And when the games resumed after the bombing in the park that claimed two lives, it was where people gathered to try to revive the Olympic spirit.A 21-acre swath of green space and bricks, the park was carved out of a blighted downtown area. It was closed after the games and redesigned for permanent use before reopening in 1998. Once again the universal gathering place it was intended to be, it's an oasis of rolling lawns crisscrossed by brick pathways and punctuated by artwork, rock gardens, pools, and fountains. There are usually a few free events each month -- festivals, artists' markets, and concerts and other performances. Call for a complete listing of happenings.If you're visiting the park on your own, and not coming for a specific event, your first stop should be the visitor center on International Boulevard, in the southwest corner of the park, across from the CNN Center. This is where you'll find information about the park. If you bought a $35 commemorative brick in 1996, someone will help you locate it among the nearly 500,000 engraved bricks that were used to pave the plaza and walkways. Even if you didn't buy a brick, it's fun to wander around and read the names and messages (some pretty intriguing) engraved on them.The best part of the park is the fountain in the shape of the five interlocking Olympic Rings. It's the focus of a vast paved plaza bordered by 23 flags honoring all the host countries of the modern Games. If you're here in summer, you and the kids can frolic in the fountain (wear shirts and shoes, please), a good way to cool off in the sizzling Southern heat. Don't be shy-just about everybody in Atlanta has done this at one time or another. If getting drenched is not your thing, you can still enjoy one of the "concerts" put on by the fountains-timed water and light displays accompany seven different songs. The water jets, which normally shoot 12 feet into the air, can reach 35 feet during special effects.Located along the east border are the Quilt Plazas, five plazas of contrasting bricks that tell the story of the Centennial Olympic Games. The best "quilt" is also the most moving. Titled the Quilt of Remembrance, it pays respect to the bombing victims and contains colored marble from five continents. Be sure to read the inscriptions on its borders.Pricey Park Land--If you really, really, really had a good time at Centennial Olympic Park, you can have it all to yourself for a small fee. Though it's a public park, it's also a moneymaker managed by the Georgia World Congress Center, and parts of the park are sometimes rented for various business functions, parties, or other celebrations. There have even been a few weddings. You can rent the entire park for, um, $10,000. Call tel. 404/222-7275 for details.

Birth Home of Martin Luther King, Jr
Martin Luther King, Jr., was born in this two-story Queen Anne-style house on January 15, 1929, the oldest son of a Baptist minister and an elementary school music teacher. His childhood was a normal one. He preferred playing baseball to piano lessons, liked to play board games, and got a kick out of tearing the heads off his older sister's dolls (nonviolence came later). To quote his sister, Christine King Farris, "My brother was no saint ordained at birth, instead he was an average and ordinary man, called by . . . God . . . to perform extraordinary deeds."King lived here through the age of 12, then moved with his family to a house a few blocks away. A visit provides many insights into the formative influences on one of the greatest leaders of our time. The Rev. A. D. Williams, King's maternal grandfather and pastor of Ebenezer Baptist Church, bought the house in 1909. Reverend Williams was active not only in the church, but also in the community and in early manifestations of the civil rights movement. He was a charter member of Atlanta's NAACP and led a series of black registration and voting drives as far back as 1917. He was instrumental in getting black officers onto the Atlanta police force. Martin Luther King, Sr., moved in on Thanksgiving Day, 1926, when he married Williams's daughter Alberta. When Reverend Williams died in 1931, King became head of the household and took over Williams's pulpit at Ebenezer Church.The King family retained ownership of the house at 501 Auburn even after they moved away. King's younger brother, Alfred Daniel, lived here with his family from 1954 to 1963. In 1971, King's mother deeded the home to The King Center. It has since been restored to its appearance during the years of King's boyhood. The furnishings are all originals or period reproductions, and some personal items belonging to the family are on display. Christine was actively involved in the restoration, providing a wealth of detail about the former appearance of the house, as well as anecdotal material about life in the King family.Tours of the house, conducted by National Park rangers, begin in the downstairs parlor, where you'll see family photographs showing Martin Luther as a child. The parlor was used for choir practice, for the dreaded piano lessons, and as a rec room where the family gathered around the radio to listen to shows like "The Shadow." In the dining room, world events were regularly discussed over meals, and every Sunday, before dinner, each child was required to recite a newly learned Bible verse from memory. You'll also see the coal cellar (stoking coal was one of King's childhood chores); the children's play area; the upstairs bedroom of King's parents in which Christine, King, and Alfred Daniel were born; Reverend Williams's den, where the family gathered for nightly Bible study; the bedroom King shared with his brother ("always in disarray," says Christine); and Christine's bedroom.Note: In summer, especially, tickets often run out early; for your best chance at touring the home, arrive at 9am.

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Heart of Atlantic Station, Midtown Atlanta; Close to shopping, restaurants and Midtown businesses; Atlanta Int'l Airport: 13mi/21km, 20 ...

Hilton Garden Inn Atlanta NW/Wildwood
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Quality Hotel Downtown
In the heart of downtown Atlanta. Convenient to shopping, dining and entertainment. Walk to Georgia World Congress Center, Philips Arena, Atlanta Market Center, Georgia Dome, Georgia State University and Underground Atlanta. Close to Georgia Tech, AUC, MLK Center, Zoo Atlanta and Turner Field (Atlanta Braves). Parking Charge: 10.00/day with in/out ...