After a good afternoon’s rest, we wandered around the Five Points District, the area of Southside Birmingham where our B&B is located.  Birmingham was known at one point (and maybe it still is) as the City of 700 Churches.  There’s certainly evidence of that near us — and we’re also within half a mile of two very large synagogues, to my surprise.

Birmingham is full of surprises, as it turns out:  an organic juice bar and yoga center; war protesters; a significant homeless population; a whole section of college town that feels like any college town, USA; a St .Patrick’s Day celebration complete with hours of bagpiping just down the street from us.

Dinner was at Highlands Bar and Grill … and this was a dinner worth the entire trip to Alabama.  This 33-year-old Birmingham fixture was one of the first farm-to-table restaurants in the country.  The food is a mix of French and Southern (which means that almost every dish involves pork, which makes everything better).  Prescott had remarkable baked grits, and I had an appetizer of asparagus, hard boiled egg, and some sort of absolutely perfect pork jowl vinaigrette (trust me, it tasted better than it sounds).  For dinner we shared grilled red snapper served over first-of-the-season peas, asparagus, and mushrooms.  Yummy.  Heavenly.