Why You Should Visit Elizabethtown, Illinois

Last spring, my husband had the brilliant idea to photograph all the places that you would tell a visitor that they should see in your part of the country, but had never been to yourself.

It lead to a spring full of Sunday road trips and out of the way spots that are worth actually going to and not just sending other people to. One of those is Elizabethtown, Illinois, and the Old Rose Hotel.

One word of advice: eat before you go. Or, wait until later in the year than we did, so you can visit the floating E'town Restaurant.

Elizabethtown sits on a bank overlooking the Ohio River and the view is spectacular, especially from the gazebo in the front yard of the Rose Hotel. The Rose Hotel operated for more than 150 years as a premier hotel along the river, for anyone who wanted to step off a riverboat and spend the night on dry land. The hotel was built in 1830 and operated continuously for generations afterward. It is on both the state and national Register of Historic Places and has been restored to its 1866 appearance.

The historic building sits on top of the bluff and has been restored to a beautiful bed and breakfast with a very nice gift shop featuring Illinois wine and local crafts. The white gazebo sits on the very edge of the bluff, making it a perfect place to sit and watch the river flow by. The setting is peaceful and the locals are very friendly.

Our one mistake was that we went in March, long before the river could be trusted to stay within its banks and long before the start of the normal tourist season. So, the community's other major attraction, a floating restaurant purported to have the best fish dinners in Southern Illinois, was still closed for the winter.

While we were able to get wonderful pictures of the community, including the hotel, restaurant and other historic buildings, what we couldn't get on a spring Sunday afternoon was a good meal. There are a couple restaurants in addition to the floating masterpiece, but one of them closes about 3 p.m. on Sundays, apparently opening just for the after-church crowd, and the other, well, it was just plain not very good.

It claimed to be a buffet with "down-home" country-cooking, but turned out to be the worst kind of greasy spoon. I've never seen a restaurant manage to make mashed potatoes greasy until that day. Even the green beans were cooked with bacon fat. Now, my grandparents are from Alabama and I know and appreciate good Southern cooking, including green beans cooked with bacon, but this was the greasiest food I had ever come across. and, these green beans weren't cooked with bacon. They were cooked in bacon fat.

So, while straying from the interstate and meandering up Illinois Highway 146 along the Ohio River coast is a beautiful expedition that I recommend to everyone, I offer this word of caution. Eat before you leave the interstate or make certain to take along a picnic lunch to eat at one of the many beautiful spots along the way. Or, go after May 1 but before the end of October, when the E'town Restaurant is open for business and serving up fresh fish.