Atlanta on a Non-Match Weekend

Most people meet Atlanta through its stadium: in, match, out, and a hotel room they barely saw. That is a shame, because the city has a walkable core that rewards a weekend with no fixture in it at all.

This is the itinerary we would give a friend. It assumes two days, one of them mostly on foot, and no car.

Start on the Atlanta BeltLine, the rail corridor that has become the city's front porch. The Eastside Trail is the segment to walk: flat, shaded in parts, and lined with the murals and converted warehouses that made the corridor famous.

Walk it early. By mid-morning on a weekend it is busy, and by afternoon it is a queue with trees.

Ponce City Market sits on the trail, in the old Sears distribution building. It is a food hall and a shop floor and a rooftop. The food hall is the practical stop; the rooftop is the view, and it costs money to go up.

Keep walking south and you reach Krog Street Market, smaller and, in our view, better for lunch. It sits at the edge of Inman Park, which is the neighbourhood to wander afterwards: Victorian houses, tree-lined streets, and a pace that feels like a different city.

From there, the trail continues toward Cabbagetown, another old mill neighbourhood that has kept its texture.

The whole walk is a few miles and it is the best single thing to do in Atlanta without a ticket.

Atlanta's restaurant scene is deep and it is not concentrated in one place. Three honest options:

The Martin Luther King Jr. National Historical Park on Auburn Avenue is the most important thing in the city, and it is free.

The visitor centre, the birth home, the Ebenezer Baptist Church and the tombs are all within a couple of blocks. Go early, take the ranger talk if one is running, and give it two hours rather than one.

The surrounding Sweet Auburn district is a walk through the neighbourhood that produced the civil rights movement's business class. It is quieter than it should be, and that is part of what you will notice.

Downtown Atlanta is a district of arenas, hotels and convention halls, and it is not the city's best walking neighbourhood. Two exceptions are worth the trip.

Centennial Olympic Park is the green space the 1996 Games left behind, and it connects the Georgia Aquarium, the World of Coca-Cola and the College Football Hall of Fame. If you have children with you, this is the afternoon.

The Sweet Auburn Curb Market is the old municipal market, and it is still a market rather than a food hall performance. Go for lunch.

The best last night in Atlanta is a short one. Find a bar within walking distance, and do not cross the city for it.

If you want the view, the rooftop bars downtown deliver it and charge for it. If you want the evening, stay where the people live.

Atlanta is a car city with a rail spine. MARTA's lines cover downtown, midtown, the airport and the stadium district well, and very little else. For the BeltLine and the east-side neighbourhoods, you are walking or riding.

The airport connection is the underrated part: MARTA runs directly to and from the terminal, which is one of the few things in American air travel that works exactly as advertised.

If you are coming for a fixture, this itinerary is also the argument for arriving a day early. The city between games is the part people remember, and it is available whether or not there is a match on.