Atlanta - not that peachy

As a son of Kansas, I have endured many a jibe about that cursed brat Dorothy and her little dog too.

Kansans will forever be linked in the public imagination with a medicated Judy Garland, her pigtails and a picnic basket in The Wizard of Oz. In the film, Kansas is presented as an unhappy, dusty place plagued by tornadoes. After years of repeats on television, this notion that Kansas is brown and boring has become entrenched in the world’s collective psyche.

It's a bit like thinking that Atlanta is still smouldering after being razed to the ground in Gone With the Wind. It turned out Atlanta was indeed suffering damage during our visit in March 2008 - from a twister, of all things!

The night before, while we were tucked up in an Interstate motel a few miles down the road, an F2 tornado tore right through Atlanta's downtown. Driving into the city the next afternoon we noticed several skyscrapers had windows blown out and entire streets were roped off. Yes, it had been the night the lights went out in Georgia.

Only in Atlanta would a tornado cause $100 million of civic improvements. I've rarely seen a city so devoid of character. It's a new city built entirely for driving on a vast scale (the average resident drives 35 miles a day, the longest distance of any American). Four million people live in largely segregated enclaves, linked only by a dense network of roads invariably with the word 'Peachtree' in their name.

Its best-known sites are the headquarters of Coca-Cola and CNN, which gives you an idea of the entrenched commercialism and blandness you can expect on a vist. Just today, The Independent remarked that one reason Chicago may have been unsuccessful in its 2016 Olympics bid is because of the 'catastrophic' choice of picking Atlanta as the 1996 host. In the centenary year of the modern Olympics, Atlanta hosted 'a garish commercial bazaar'.

Unsurprisingly we left Atlanta for the tail end of our Dixie roadtrip, giving it only one full day before flying back home. Luckily, we found a quirky hotel in a unique neighbourhood, The Highland Inn in 'the Poncey Highlands' (Ponce de Leon and Highland being the intersecting streets).

After staying in so many soulless motels near Interstate exits, it was quite a change to find this old stone building in a funky neighbourhood. For the first time in a long while we left the car behind in order walk to the shops and nightlife spots. Around us was a fun neighbourhood with a mix of independent shops, interesting eateries, great taverns and even an all night 1920s diner.

A word of warning: the hotel's own description as 'the only European-style boutique hotel in Atlanta' is off the mark. Boutique in Europe means opulent style and trendy design. The Highland is more like an old-fashioned European guesthouse: a bit tired, but in a wonderful location and terrific value.

After getting a coffee and browsing a huge used bookstore we headed back to the hotel as it began spitting rain. A police car drove past, its siren screeching. The rain started to come down in buckets and when I turned on the TV the local stations were abuzz with storm warnings.

The radar indicated rotation and baseball-sized hail inside the storm clouds. Outside the hotel the rain was coming down in sheets. The TV cameras showed a fierce black cloud scraping the ground, bearing on downtown again...and us. Now, one tornado is bad luck, but to have two in a row sounds like Kansas!

Right as we were ready to drag the mattress into the bathroom to make ourselves a bunker, the rain stopped as if a switch had been thrown. Was this the calm before the storm? No, because according to an eyewitness on the TV the cloud had lifted up and dissipated.

Anyone else hungry after all this drama? Literally next door to the hotel was a great restaurant, Cafe di Sol. The food was Mediterranean style - to start we shared hummus which came strips of toasted pita bread and a small salad of cold green beans, peeled cucumber and olives in a chili dressing. Next, Christian had crab cakes on linguine with green beans which he struggled to finish, while I had mushroom ravioli with grilled asparagus. This wasn't quite as filling as Christian's main, so I followed up with vanilla pannacotta topped with fruit. With another beer and some water it came to $70 including the tip. One of the best meals of the trip!

The other highlight of our visit was the High Museum of Art (named after the High family, who had nothing to do with drugs as far as I know). A huge complex with new extensions built by Renzo Piano, I'd to ask Mr Piano why he thought all-white buildings surrounded by white pavements would be a good idea in the American South. I felt snowblind by the time we walked in.

At $18 a pop, the museum is expensive (practically all of Britain's museums are free) and as the admission granted us access to everything, so we saw everything. Thanks to its links with the Louvre, this included some of Empress Josephine's personal art collection plus some of the oldest pottery and tablets I have ever seen (we're talking Sumerian writing around 7000 years old). They also had a nice line going in Egyptian jewellery, Greek pots, Roman statues and ancient bronze figurines. A small but potent assortment.

The painting collection wasn't as impressive: a few Italian nativities (fat babies and serene Mother Marys), one English portrait by Lely and lots of French rubbish. The Renoirs were poor, the Monets only OK and the rest of their countrymen couldn't paint for toffees. There were hardly any German or Dutch paintings, aside from a low-rent Cranach, and we were disappointed there seemed to be no Spanish artists on view.

Moving on to the American art of the 1700s and 1800s, everything was either a dull potrait, a sentimental landscape or a sickly genre scene. Furniture of the period bulked out the galleries, trying to hide how few paintings they had.

I enjoyed the Art Deco design section with clocks, radios, chairs and even an clothes iron that gleamed with sophistication.

The 'outsider' folk art by contrast was colourful, eccentric, even a bit rude. Similar to what the big city art dealer was looking for in Junebug (great film).

Next, the contemporary crap. This amounted to huge rooms filled with wooden blocks and rubbish photos on a giant scale (apparently a snapshot of your child's bedroom becomes art when the print is 8-feet tall).

Far more interesting were the 'street' photos from the 1960s and 1970s - tattooed bikers, 'womens lib' equal rights marchers and carnival midway strippers. I was reminded of Weegee and his candid shots of sordid city life.

It seems a seedy note to end the holiday on, but it was time to fly back home. After all the miles we had put on the car, our abiding memories were of beautiful places, lovely towns, gorgeous beaches, historic landmarks and green scenery dappled in spring sunshine. And barbecue!

Stay tuned for some photos from our long layover in Philadelpia, though I may not have time before we jet off to Greece tomorrow!